Subject: Re: What does `git push origin --delete ""` do?

From: Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 23 Feb 2021 14:46:51 -0800

Tilman Vogel <[email-masked]> writes:

> Because of an empty line in the input file, my script
>
> cat remove.txt | sed 's/origin\///' | xargs -d '\n' git push origin --delete
>
> executed (among other deletions) an implicit `git push origin --delete
> ""`. I wonder, what that one is supposed to do.

It is supposed to error out, but incorrectly and silently turns
itself into a "matching push".

This should fix it, I think (not even compiled tested).

 builtin/push.c | 2 +-
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git c/builtin/push.c w/builtin/push.c
index 03adb58602..194967ed79 100644
--- c/builtin/push.c
+++ w/builtin/push.c
@@ -115,7 +115,7 @@ static void set_refspecs(const char **refs, int nr, const char *repo)
 			else
 				refspec_appendf(&rs, "refs/tags/%s", ref);
 		} else if (deleterefs) {
-			if (strchr(ref, ':'))
+			if (strchr(ref, ':') || !*ref)
 				die(_("--delete only accepts plain target ref names"));
 			refspec_appendf(&rs, ":%s", ref);
 		} else if (!strchr(ref, ':')) {