Re: Request re git status

[Phil Hord <phil.hord@gmail.com>]

On Mon, Feb 6, 2017 at 3:36 PM Ron Pero <rpero@magnadev.com> wrote:
> I almost got bit by git: I knew there were changes on the remote
> server, but git status said I was uptodate with the remote.
>

Do you mean you almost pushed some changed history with "--force"
which would have lost others' changes?  Use of this option is
discouraged on shared branches for this very reason.  But if you do
use it, the remote will tell you the hash of the old branch so you can
undo the damage.

But if you did not use --force, then you were not in danger of being
bit.  Git would have prevented the push in that case.


> Why ... not design it to [optionally] DO a fetch and THEN declare
> whether it is up to date?

It's because `git status` does not talk to the remote server, by
design.  The only Git commands that do talk to the remote are push,
pull and fetch.  All the rest work off-line and they do so
consistently.

Imagine `git status` did what you requested; that is, it first did a
fetch and then reported the status.  Suppose someone pushed a commit
to the remote immediately after your fetch completed.  Now git will
still report "up to date" but it will be wrong as soon as the remote
finishes adding the new push.  Yet the "up to date" message will
remain on your console, lying to you.  If you leave and come back in
two days, the message will remain there even if it is no longer
correct.

So you should accept that `git status` tells you the status with
respect to your most recent fetch, and that you are responsible for
the timing of the most recent fetch.  To have git try to do otherwise
would be misleading.

> Or change the message to tell what it really
> did, e.g. "Your branch was up-to-date with 'origin/master' when last
> checked at {timestamp}"? Or even just say, "Do a fetch to find out
> whether your branch is up to date"?

These are reasonable suggestions, but i don't think the extra wording
adds anything for most users.  Adding a timestamp seems generally
useful, but it could get us into other trouble since we have to depend
on outside sources for timestamps.  :-\