Subject: Re: [PATCH 3/3] clone: propagate empty remote HEAD even with other branches

From: Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 06 Jul 2022 15:01:54 -0700

Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]> writes:

> Jeff King <[email-masked]> writes:
> ...
>>    For a bare clone, it won't emit any warning at all (but will still
>>    set up HEAD appropriately). That's probably fine. There's no part of
>>    the operation we were unable to perform, so any "by the way, the
>>    remote HEAD wasn't there but we pointed our HEAD to it anyway"
>>    message would be purely informational. Though perhaps one could argue
>>    the same about the current "empty repository" message in a bare
>>    clone.
>
> I am kind of surprised that the code still behaves differently
> between empty and non-empty cases.  Given the earlier decision above
> to consistently use the remote's HEAD, I would have expected that
> setting HEAD to point at an non-existent ref would be done at one
> place, instead of being done for empty and non-empty clone
> separately.  We'll find out why while reading the patch, I think.

OK, that is because we have if/else on the number of refs mapped via
the refspec by wanted_peer_refs(), and setup_unborn_head is done
independently in each of these if/else arms.

> --- a/builtin/clone.c
> +++ b/builtin/clone.c
> @@ -1298,9 +1298,12 @@ int cmd_clone(int argc, const char **argv, const char *prefix)
>  			if (!our_head_points_at)
>  				die(_("Remote branch %s not found in upstream %s"),
>  				    option_branch, remote_name);
> -		}
> -		else
> +		} else {
>  			our_head_points_at = remote_head_points_at;
> +			if (!our_head_points_at)
> +				setup_unborn_head(transport_ls_refs_options.unborn_head_target,
> +						  reflog_msg.buf);
> +		}
>  	}
>  	else {
>  		if (option_branch)

The following rewrite with the same behaviour may be a bit easier to
follow.

Thanks.

 builtin/clone.c | 9 +++++----
 1 file changed, 5 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)

diff --git c/builtin/clone.c w/builtin/clone.c
index cb7b347c5a..0b172af9e4 100644
--- c/builtin/clone.c
+++ w/builtin/clone.c
@@ -1298,11 +1298,12 @@ int cmd_clone(int argc, const char **argv, const char *prefix)
 			if (!our_head_points_at)
 				die(_("Remote branch %s not found in upstream %s"),
 				    option_branch, remote_name);
-		} else {
+		} else if (remote_head_points_at) {
 			our_head_points_at = remote_head_points_at;
-			if (!our_head_points_at)
-				setup_unborn_head(transport_ls_refs_options.unborn_head_target,
-						  reflog_msg.buf);
+		} else {
+			our_head_points_at = NULL;
+			setup_unborn_head(transport_ls_refs_options.unborn_head_target,
+					  reflog_msg.buf);
 		}
 	}
 	else {