Run git pull on empty repository without error

Question

I have a list of directories where I want to run git pull

Some of these may be empty.

When I run git pull on it, I get this error:

Your configuration specifies to merge with the ref 'master'
from the remote, but no such ref was fetched.

and an exit code of 1

I have my script to exit if any command fails.

Is it possible to detect if it failed due to this error? Or any other way to pull which doesn't error out on empty repositories?

Edit: .git/config

git:(master) cat .git/config 
[core]
    repositoryformatversion = 0
    filemode = true
    bare = false
    logallrefupdates = true
[remote "origin"]
    fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*
    url = <git repo url>
[branch "master"]
    remote = origin
    merge = refs/heads/master

@Rorchackh, added it in my question. I just ran a normal `git clone`. — user1527166, Oct 31 '12 at 12:08
I think something like `git fetch` and then detecting if something was fetched would work. But I don't know much. `git fetch` doesn't error out, just outputs nothing, and exits with `0`. — user1527166, Oct 31 '12 at 12:17
I am not sure about this, but it seems to me that maybe the branch was deleted in the remote repo but it still exists in your local repo. verify this. If this is happening then run **git remote prune origin --dry-run** to remove all stale local branches. then try pulling once again. — Rorchackh, Oct 31 '12 at 12:24
Nope, I just cloned the repo. And that command doesn't output anything... — user1527166, Oct 31 '12 at 12:30

score 1 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:14

This is taken from here

To clone an empty repo at path,

Keep at ~/git/onefile a non-bare git repo containing one innocuous
file such as .gitignore. (Alternatively, create such a repo
dynamically.)
(cd ~/git/onefile; git push path master)
git clone -o name path

In other words, don't attempt to clone the empty repo, but rather after creating it, push to it a simple repo containing one innocuous file. Then it is no longer empty and can be cloned.

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 30 '17 at 02:16

You can test it on the remote reference existance. For example, the master reference does not yet exist after init, so in the windows batch script it would be something like this:

git ls-remote -h --exit-code myrepo master > nul && (
  git pull myrepo master
)

Run git pull on empty repository without error

2 Answers2