git pull shows "destructing" messages

Question

I did a git pull today and got the following:

$ git pull
remote: Counting objects: 8, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (8/8), done.
remote: Total 8 (delta 6), reused 0 (delta 0)
Unpacking objects: 100% (8/8), done.
From bitbucket.org:[...]
   968e1d5..672edb4  develop    -> origin/develop
   911ae33..37250eb  release/fta -> origin/release/fta
destructing 4
destructing 3
destructing 2
destructing 1
Merge made by the 'recursive' strategy.
 .../[...].cs  | 2 +-
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)

Some context:

• The pull was unable to do a fast-forward. Therefore I got a merge commit.
• From the point on where my branch diverged from the remote, I had one commit (with 2 file changes) and the remote had one commit (with 1 file changed).

So what are the "destructing X" messages about? Why are there 4 of them? Two commits with 3 file changes where merged.

Checked git documentation and did some duckduckgo'ing and could not find an answer.

Kind regards

Answer 1

Most likely, that message was generated by Notepad++.

Do you have Notepad++ set as your git commit message editor? Additionally, are you using Cygwin? If so, then pulling and getting a merge commit would have opened Notepad++. From then, there's a chance that you opened the plugin manager.

Notepad++'s plugin manager previously emitted destructing %d messages when it was opened, but due to a console usually not being attached, those messages never showed up anywhere. However, with Cygwin, they do appear... but only when you close Notepad++. The messages also only appear when you open the plugin manager, which can make it hard to figure out the actual cause.

This has been fixed, and will be solved in the next release of the plugin manager (which isn't out yet).

The messages only relate to internal disposal from within Notepad++; no actual data was deleted or even changed. This is just normal behavior for the plugin manager and not something to be worried about. (I'm not entirely sure why it's 4 occurrences; that's just the number of things that get allocated).