What Git '--progress' flag is for and how to use it

Question

Today I have noticed in my IDE (IntelliJ) that when I do 'commit and push' from the IDE level I can see in the version control output tab that IntelliJ is using the following command:

git push --progress origin storyBranchA:storyBranchA

I wonder how I can use that 'progress' flag outside of my IDE, is there any nice usage explained somewhere as I cannot find anything about that flag, and why the IDE is actually specifying the branch to commit to as storyBranchA:storyBranchA and not simply

git push --progress origin storyBranchA

Regards Kris

Answer 1

The man page for git push seems to have documented the flag:

--progress

Progress status is reported on the standard error stream by default when it is attached to a terminal, unless -q is specified. This flag forces progress status even if the standard error stream is not directed to a terminal.

Since IntelliJ is not launching the program under a terminal, it’s asking Git to report the progress anyway.

The reason for specifying both the local and remote refspec on the git push command line is that they never optimized for the case when both sides are the same. storyBranchA is equivalent to storyBranchA:storyBranchA. It is possible to have the branch named one way locally, and another way remotely. In that case, you'd see something like storyBranchA:someOtherRef on the command line.

You also don't want to just use git push blindly because their settings may have git push setup to push all tracking branches, rather than the single branch that was intended.