Re: git fetch with refspec does not include tags?

[Kevin Daudt <me@ikke.info>]

On Thu, Aug 17, 2017 at 12:38:58PM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote:
> Jeff King <peff@peff.net> writes:
> 
> >   # no tags, we just populate FETCH_HEAD because of the bare URL
> >   git fetch ../parent
> >
> >   # this does fetch tags, because we're storing the result according to
> >   # the configured refspec ("refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*").
> >   git fetch origin
> 
> The above two look good.
> 
> >   # this doesn't fetch tags, as the main command is "just" populating
> >   # FETCH_HEAD. But then our logic for "hey, we fetched the ref for
> >   # refs/remotes/origin/master, so let's update it on the side" kicks
> >   # in. And we end up updating FETCH_HEAD _and_ the tracking branch, but
> >   # not the tags. Weird.
> >   git fetch origin master
> 
> Yes, it looks weird, but I suspect that it is probably more correct
> not to fetch tags in this case.  I wonder if it would be a solution
> not to do the "on the side" thing---after all the user didn't tell
> us to update refs/remotes/origin/master with this command line.

Isn't that how git fetch used to behave, or am I misunderstanding what
you mean? It used to be that git fetch <remote> <branch> would not
update any remote tracking branches.

From the 1.8.4 release notes:

> "git fetch origin master" unlike "git fetch origin" or "git fetch"
> did not update "refs/remotes/origin/master"; this was an early
> design decision to keep the update of remote tracking branches
> predictable, but in practice it turns out that people find it more
> convenient to opportunistically update them whenever we have a
> chance, and we have been updating them when we run "git push" which
> already breaks the original "predictability" anyway.