On Wed, 11 Jun 2025 at 16:23, Junio C Hamano <gitster@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > M Hickford <mirth.hickford@xxxxxxxxx> writes: > > > To support Git users with sporadic connectivity, might it be useful to > > add an option to git fetch? Perhaps `git fetch --offline` or `git > > fetch --complete-prefetch`? > > "offline catch-up" is probably the phrase I would prefer to see in > the documentation page to explain the concept of the operation than > "complete prefetch". That makes sense to me. > In any case, to present it as a first-class option to end-users, > there needs a lot more thinking and a bit of work need to go into > the way "prefetch" works. For example, the longhand I gave would > work as a good solution only when the user _knows_ that the prefetch > is more recent than their actual remote-tracking branches. If > refs/prefetch/remotes/R/* is older, then you wouldn't be bringing > yourself closer to the present state of the remote at all with such > a fetch, but as far as I know, a normal "git fetch R" from the > remote R would not clear refs/prefetch/remotes/R/* when it > completes. There is no "last time we fetched from there" record > kept anywhere in the repository either. So offhand, you'd at least > need to do these: > > - teach "git fetch" that updates remote-tracking branches to remove > the corresponding ref in the refs/prefetch/ hierarchy; > > - decide on what option name to use for this new operation and > document it; > > - implement the option "git fetch --that-option nickname" to > > - figure out the remote-tracking hierarchy for nickname and call > it R > > - when refs/prefetch/remotes/R/* exists, do an > > $ git fetch . "+refs/prefetch/remotes/R/*:refs/remotes/R/*" > Thanks Junio for your insight. I shall leave this as a feature request, perhaps suitable for a microproject #leftoverbits
