Create new git branch: azure.devops.exceptions.AzureDevOpsClientRequestError: The requested resource does not support http method 'PATCH'

[AndreasLuckert]

Background:

I'm using the azure-devops-python-api - library in order to programmatically push a commit to my Azure DevOps organization (git) repository.

The Azure DevOps REST API docs for "Update - Ref" did not help me to figure out the solution. This discussion did not help me either.

Problem:

"The requested resource does not support http method 'PATCH'" when calling update_ref() in module azure\devops\released\git\git_client_base.py.

There is no obvious function for creating a branch, which would be called create_branch() according to the principle of least surprise. As opposed to this Azure DevOps API, this is much more intuitively resolved in e.g. the AWS CodeCommit API.

Anyways, I would like understand what exactly goes wrong here. The error message is very generic, I could not determine which of the inputs are the problem.

Even when I provide the filter - argument instead of being None to the target or source branch name, it throws the following error:

azure.devops.exceptions.AzureDevOpsServiceError: The only property which can be patched is isLocked.

For the sake of completeness, the short docstring of filter from the above-mentioned module:

:param str filter: The name of the branch to lock/unlock

I would also be greatful for any other way of simply creating a new branch which does not exist.

---

Source Code:

The code involved until invoking the git_client.update_ref() - method, is:

from azure.devops.v5_1.git.models import (
    GitRefUpdate,
)
from azure.devops.connection import Connection


release_head_commit_id = '12312314123123123213123123123'
project_name = 'project_x'
repo_name = 'project_x'
release_branch_name = 'target-branch'
feature_branch_name = 'feature-branch'
git_client = Connection(base_url=organization_url, creds=credentials).clients.get_git_client()

filter_name = None  # or feature_branch_name or release_branch_name alternatively

git_client.update_ref(
                GitRefUpdate(
                    is_locked=False,
                    name=feature_branch_name,
                    new_object_id=release_head_commit_id,
                    old_object_id='0' * 40,
                    repository_id=repo_name,
                ),
                repo_name,
                filter_name ,
                project=project_name,
                project_id=project_name,
            )

The old_object_id='0' * 40 was set like this based on this comment.

[bkane-msft]

Also trying to do this. These APIs are super confusing :(

[rlehman221]

Also trying to do this to create a new branch