Subject: Re: remote.<name>.merge missing from the git-config man page?

From: Jonathan Nieder <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Mar 2021 23:59:23 -0800

Junio C Hamano wrote:

> From: Taylor Blau <[email-masked]>
> Date: Mon, 8 Mar 2021 13:43:47 -0500
> Subject: [PATCH] Documentation/git-push.txt: correct configuration typo
>
> In the EXAMPLES section, git-push(1) says that 'git push origin' pushes
> the current branch to the value of the 'remote.origin.merge'
> configuration.
>
> This wording (which dates back to b2ed944af7 (push: switch default from
> "matching" to "simple", 2013-01-04)) is incorrect. There is no such
> configuration as 'remote.<name>.merge'. This likely was originally
> intended to read "branch.<name>.merge" instead.
>
> Indeed, when 'push.default' is 'simple' (which is the default value, and
> is applicable in this scenario per "without additional configuration"),
> setup_push_upstream() dies if the branch's local name does not match
> 'branch.<name>.merge'.
>
> Correct this long-standing typo to resolve some recent confusion on the
> intended behavior of this example.
>
> Reported-by: Adam Sharafeddine <[email-masked]>
> Reported-by: Fabien Terrani <[email-masked]>
> Signed-off-by: Taylor Blau <[email-masked]>
> Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]>
> ---
>  Documentation/git-push.txt | 2 +-
>  1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)

Looks good.
Reviewed-by: Jonathan Nieder <[email-masked]>

> diff --git a/Documentation/git-push.txt b/Documentation/git-push.txt
> index ab103c82cf..a953c7c387 100644
> --- a/Documentation/git-push.txt
> +++ b/Documentation/git-push.txt
> @@ -600,7 +600,7 @@ EXAMPLES
>  
>  `git push origin`::
>  	Without additional configuration, pushes the current branch to
> -	the configured upstream (`remote.origin.merge` configuration
> +	the configured upstream (`branch.<name>.merge` configuration
>  	variable) if it has the same name as the current branch, and
>  	errors out without pushing otherwise.

>From the discussion it seems this sentence has further room for
improvement, but that shouldn't block this straightforward typofix
patch.

A few ideas for further improvement:

- I think "the configured upstream" would read more clearly as "its
  configured upstream"

- the parenthesis could be a little clearer by adding a verb --- e.g.
  "as determined by the `branch.<name>.merge` configuration variable".
  Alternatively, is that implementation detail the right thing to
  mention?  Perhaps we could instead say something like "as configured
  using git branch --set-upstream-to" as a way to introduce the
  concept of a branch's upstream.

- the "it" in "it has the same name" is vague.  Does a branch's
  upstream represent the remote-tracking branch (e.g.,
  refs/remotes/origin/main) it merges or rebases against, or does it
  represent the remote branch (e.g., refs/heads/main in the remote
  repository pointed to by origin) it pulls from?

Putting those together, I could imagine something along the lines of

	Without additional configuration, this first checks that the
	current branch's configured upstream (see git-branch(1)
	--set-upstream-to) is a remote branch with the same name and
	then pushes there.  If there is no configured upstream or
	the configured upstream has a different name, it errors out
	without pushing.

Thanks,
Jonathan