Re: [PATCH v5 1/2] branch: accept multiple upstream branches for tracking

[Glen Choo <chooglen@google.com>]

Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab@gmail.com> writes:

> On Thu, Dec 09 2021, Glen Choo wrote:
>
>> Josh Steadmon <steadmon@google.com> writes:
>>
>>>> > @@ -121,11 +168,18 @@ int install_branch_config(int flag, const char *local, const char *origin, const
>>>> >  	advise(_(tracking_advice),
>>>> >  	       origin ? origin : "",
>>>> >  	       origin ? "/" : "",
>>>> > -	       shortname ? shortname : remote);
>>>> > +	       remotes->items[0].string);
>>>> >  
>>>> >  	return -1;
>>>> >  }
>>>> 
>>>> When there is more than one item in remotes->items, this advice is
>>>> _technically_ incorrect because --set-upstream-to only takes a single
>>>> upstream branch. I think that supporting multiple upstreams in
>>>> --set-upstream-to is a fairly niche use case and is out of scope of this
>>>> series, so let's not pursue that option.
>>>> 
>>>> Another option would be to replace the mention of --set-upstream-to with
>>>> "git config add", but that's unfriendly to the >90% of the user
>>>> population that doesn't want multiple merge entries.
>>>> 
>>>> If we leave the advice as-is, even though it is misleading, a user who
>>>> is sophisticated enough to set up multiple merge entries should also
>>>> know that --set-upstream-to won't solve their problems, and would
>>>> probably be able to fix their problems by mucking around with
>>>> .git/config or git config.
>>>> 
>>>> So I think it is ok to not change the advice and to only mention the
>>>> first merge item. However, it might be worth marking this as NEEDSWORK
>>>> so that subsequent readers of this file understand that this advice is
>>>> overly-simplistic and might be worth fixing.
>>>
>>> Sounds like we should just have separate advice strings for single vs.
>>> multiple merge configs?
>>
>> That sounds like a good idea if it's not too much work. Otherwise, a
>> NEEDSWORK is still acceptable to me (but that said, I'm not an authority
>> on this matter).
>
> We haven't used Q_() with advise() yet, but there's no reason not to:
>
> 	advise(Q_("fix your branch by doing xyz",
> 		  "fix your branches by doing xyz",
>                   branches_nr));

Neat, that should do it in most cases. I think this one is a little
trickier because the plural advice messages requires constructing a
list, e.g.

Singular: 
  "\n"
  "After fixing the error cause you may try to fix up\n"
  "the remote tracking information by invoking\n"
  "\"git branch --set-upstream-to=%s%s%s\"."

Plural:
  "\n"
  "After fixing the error cause you may try to fix up\n"
  "the remote tracking information by invoking\n"
  "\"git config --add my_new_remote remote_name\"
  "\"git config --add my_new_upstream1 upstream_name1\"
  "\"git config --add my_new_upstream2 upstream_name2\"

But perhaps this is not too hard since you've already included examples
of how to format lists of strings [1]

[1] https://lore.kernel.org/git/211207.86mtlcpyu4.gmgdl@evledraar.gmail.com