Why doesn't git-fetch obey -c "remote.origin.url" on the command-line?

Why doesn't git-fetch obey -c "remote.origin.url" on the command-line?

[Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason]

On a git built from the master branch just now:

 $ ./git config remote.origin.url
https://code.google.com/p/git-core/
$ ./git -c remote.origin.url=git://git.sourceforge.jp/gitroot/git-core/git.git
config remote.origin.url
git://git.sourceforge.jp/gitroot/git-core/git.git
$ GIT_TRACE=1 ./git -c
remote.origin.url=git://git.sourceforge.jp/gitroot/git-core/git.git
fetch 2>&1 | head -n 2
trace: built-in: git 'fetch'
trace: run_command: 'git-remote-https' 'origin'
'https://code.google.com/p/git-core/'

I'd expect this to try to fetch from the remote.origin.url I specified
on the command-line, but for some reason fetch doesn't pick that up.
Isn't this a bug?

The use case for this is to have a script in cron that does a pull of
repositories via http while the developers expecting to occasionally
use those repositories as work directories should transparently be
able to pull/push from them.

I know about remote.origin.pushurl, but I'd prefer pulls to also be
over ssh in those cases, because then you don't have to worry about
proxy settings (different for the devs & that automated script).

I could fix this, but I thought I'd first send a question about
whether this shouldn't be considered a bug, and I haven't dug into
this yet but I think that configuration passed via the -c option
should *always* override any other config Git may get from elsewhere.

Re: Why doesn't git-fetch obey -c "remote.origin.url" on the command-line?

[Jeff King]

On Fri, Jun 13, 2014 at 09:37:07AM +0200, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason wrote:

> On a git built from the master branch just now:
> 
>  $ ./git config remote.origin.url
> https://code.google.com/p/git-core/
> $ ./git -c remote.origin.url=git://git.sourceforge.jp/gitroot/git-core/git.git
> config remote.origin.url
> git://git.sourceforge.jp/gitroot/git-core/git.git
> $ GIT_TRACE=1 ./git -c
> remote.origin.url=git://git.sourceforge.jp/gitroot/git-core/git.git
> fetch 2>&1 | head -n 2
> trace: built-in: git 'fetch'
> trace: run_command: 'git-remote-https' 'origin'
> 'https://code.google.com/p/git-core/'
> 
> I'd expect this to try to fetch from the remote.origin.url I specified
> on the command-line, but for some reason fetch doesn't pick that up.
> Isn't this a bug?

I think this is an alternate version of the report in [1].

The short answer is: remote.*.url is a multi-valued config option, and
you can only append to (not override) such options with "git -c". Try
using insteadOf.

-Peff

[1] http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/250427

Re: Why doesn't git-fetch obey -c "remote.origin.url" on the command-line?

[Philip Oakley]

From: "Jeff King" <peff@peff.net>
> On Fri, Jun 13, 2014 at 09:37:07AM +0200, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason
> wrote:
>
>> On a git built from the master branch just now:
>>
>>  $ ./git config remote.origin.url
>> https://code.google.com/p/git-core/
>> $ ./git -c
>> remote.origin.url=git://git.sourceforge.jp/gitroot/git-core/git.git
>> config remote.origin.url
>> git://git.sourceforge.jp/gitroot/git-core/git.git
>> $ GIT_TRACE=1 ./git -c
>> remote.origin.url=git://git.sourceforge.jp/gitroot/git-core/git.git
>> fetch 2>&1 | head -n 2
>> trace: built-in: git 'fetch'
>> trace: run_command: 'git-remote-https' 'origin'
>> 'https://code.google.com/p/git-core/'
>>
>> I'd expect this to try to fetch from the remote.origin.url I
>> specified
>> on the command-line, but for some reason fetch doesn't pick that up.
>> Isn't this a bug?

If anything, given Peff's clarification below, it's a bug in the way the
documentation has (not) communicated this trap for the unwary.

The question would then become "What warning should be given and where
should it/they be placed?" It should go within the documentation where 
folk
look to check that the command innvocations were as expected. (It may
also be a 'common knowledge' issue [2]).

I already see that the git(1) man page for the '-c' option doesn't cover
the mult-value config option case.

The config-api suggests the common priority order where later values
override newer values.

I've done a little documentation patch to cover the current situation.

I've also copied in Robert (fuz) (from [1]) and Tanay (updating the
reading of config files).

>
> I think this is an alternate version of the report in [1].
>
> The short answer is: remote.*.url is a multi-valued config option, and
> you can only append to (not override) such options with "git -c". Try
> using insteadOf.
>
> -Peff
>
> [1] http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/250427
> --
[2] "It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what
you know for sure that just ain't so." Mark Twain