Improve detection of the target branch

[kemenaran]

If the target branch isn't specified in the command arguments, attempts to find the name of the remotly tracked branch (before falling back on master).

This means that if the branch feature tracks upstream/dev, the code will correctly detect that the target branch is dev.

[caarlos0]

Nice one, just need to fix the shellcheck warnings :)

test -z "$target" && target="$(git for-each-ref --format='%(upstream:short)' "$(git symbolic-ref -q HEAD)" | cut -d '/' -f 2)"

[kemenaran]

@caarlos0 PR updated with the linter warning fixed.

[caarlos0]

Thanks @kemenaran 👍

[Turbo87]

@caarlos0 this actually broke the script for me. If I push branch foo to origin and then run the script it will point to /compare/foo...Turbo87:foo instead of /compare/master...Turbo87:foo

[kemenaran]

@Turbo87 indeed it probably worked before incidentally, because no target branch was specified and master was the default fallback.

That said, if no remote-tracking branch is found, the script is still expected to fallback to master anyway. You results seem to imply that either this patch had a bug (which is very possible), or that your foo branch is tracking origin/foo. Is it the case? If so, does your workflow requires it?

[Turbo87]

or that your foo branch is tracking origin/foo

yes, that is the case.

If so, does your workflow requires it?

it's not required, but it would certainly be good if you want to modify the PR again after opening it. then you can just git push instead of having to manually specify the remote and branch name all the time.

[kemenaran]

Good point.

Maybe the part of the script that attempts to infer the target branch could explicitly ignore the remote-tracking branch if it has the same name and remote than the local branch?

This would mean the following behavior:

• dev doesn't track any branch. The target is inferred to be origin/master.
• dev tracks upstream/stable. The target is inferred to be upstream/stable.
• dev tracks upstream/dev. The target is inferred to be upstream/dev (as the tracking remote is not origin).
• dev tracks origin/dev. The target branch is inferred to be origin/master (the fallback), as it would otherwise be origin/dev, which is the same name and remote than the local branch.

[Turbo87]

hmm, I'm not sure why it would ever target the origin remote?

[kemenaran]

I guess it would be sensible to target the origin remote either:

• In the case where I am working on my own repository, but still want to make feature branches and PRs,
• In the case where several people are working with feature branches on the same repository directly (rather than everyone having its own fork).

In both these cases PRs would be made with origin as the target remote, right?

[Turbo87]

In the case where I am working on my own repository, but still want to make feature branches and PRs

sounds like an uncommon case to me (--remote=origin option maybe?)

In the case where several people are working with feature branches on the same repository directly (rather than everyone having its own fork).

in that case I still use upstream as the remote name