Unable to create branches with the --revision CLI flag

[AlpinDale]

Describe the bug

The --revision flag for huggingface-cli seems to only take existing revisions. The expected behaviour should be the creation of a new branch if it doesn't exist, same as the repository positional argument.

Reproduction

huggingface-cli upload username/repo upload foo.bin --revision dev

Logs

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/huggingface_hub/utils/_errors.py", line 270, in hf_raise_for_status
    response.raise_for_status()
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/requests/models.py", line 1021, in raise_for_status
    raise HTTPError(http_error_msg, response=self)
requests.exceptions.HTTPError: 404 Client Error: Not Found for url: https://huggingface.co/api/datasets/alpindale/test-file/commit/dev

The above exception was the direct cause of the following exception:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/local/bin/huggingface-cli", line 8, in <module>
    sys.exit(main())
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/huggingface_hub/commands/huggingface_cli.py", line 49, in main
    service.run()
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/huggingface_hub/commands/upload.py", line 187, in run
    print(self._upload())
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/huggingface_hub/commands/upload.py", line 260, in _upload
    return self.api.upload_file(
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/huggingface_hub/utils/_validators.py", line 118, in _inner_fn
    return fn(*args, **kwargs)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/huggingface_hub/hf_api.py", line 1045, in _inner
    return fn(self, *args, **kwargs)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/huggingface_hub/hf_api.py", line 3850, in upload_file
    commit_info = self.create_commit(
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/huggingface_hub/utils/_validators.py", line 118, in _inner_fn
    return fn(*args, **kwargs)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/huggingface_hub/hf_api.py", line 1045, in _inner
    return fn(self, *args, **kwargs)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/huggingface_hub/hf_api.py", line 3237, in create_commit
    hf_raise_for_status(commit_resp, endpoint_name="commit")
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/huggingface_hub/utils/_errors.py", line 276, in hf_raise_for_status
    raise RevisionNotFoundError(message, response) from e
huggingface_hub.utils._errors.RevisionNotFoundError: 404 Client Error. (Request ID: Root=1-655a743e-7aea1a250b511830735caef7;6e6c3567-a10d-4891-843e-30d9a0e43b36)

Revision Not Found for url: https://huggingface.co/api/datasets/alpindale/test-file/commit/dev.
Invalid rev id: dev

### System info

```shell
- huggingface_hub version: 0.19.4
- Platform: Linux-5.15.0-84-generic-x86_64-with-glibc2.35
- Python version: 3.10.12
- Running in iPython ?: No
- Running in notebook ?: No
- Running in Google Colab ?: No
- Token path ?: /root/.cache/huggingface/token
- Has saved token ?: True
- Who am I ?: alpindale
- Configured git credential helpers:
- FastAI: N/A
- Tensorflow: N/A
- Torch: 2.1.0+cu118
- Jinja2: 3.1.2
- Graphviz: N/A
- Pydot: N/A
- Pillow: 9.3.0
- hf_transfer: N/A
- gradio: N/A
- tensorboard: N/A
- numpy: 1.24.1
- pydantic: N/A
- aiohttp: N/A
- ENDPOINT: https://huggingface.co
- HF_HUB_CACHE: /root/.cache/huggingface/hub
- HF_ASSETS_CACHE: /root/.cache/huggingface/assets
- HF_TOKEN_PATH: /root/.cache/huggingface/token
- HF_HUB_OFFLINE: False
- HF_HUB_DISABLE_TELEMETRY: False
- HF_HUB_DISABLE_PROGRESS_BARS: None
- HF_HUB_DISABLE_SYMLINKS_WARNING: False
- HF_HUB_DISABLE_EXPERIMENTAL_WARNING: False
- HF_HUB_DISABLE_IMPLICIT_TOKEN: False
- HF_HUB_ENABLE_HF_TRANSFER: False
- HF_HUB_ETAG_TIMEOUT: 10
- HF_HUB_DOWNLOAD_TIMEOUT: 10

[Wauplin]

@AlpinDale what would you think about having a --create-branch optional argument as described in #1657 (comment) instead? You would have to do

huggingface-cli upload username/repo upload foo.bin --revision dev --create-branch

I am still unsure whether branch creation should be automatic or not.

[AlpinDale]

@Wauplin I don't see now this would be an issue, since the tool automatically creates repositories anyway. Creating a branch by default shouldn't be a problem compared to that. If the plan is to have a --create-branch flag, might as well have a --create-repo on top of it.

Also, I've always wondered why HF decided to call branches "revisions". A lot of people don't know they refer to branches from what I've gathered.

[Wauplin]

Creating a branch by default shouldn't be a problem compared to that. If the plan is to have a --create-branch flag, might as well have a --create-repo on top of it.

Fair point @AlpinDale. I wanted to think twice before implementing it but it's now done (see #1857).

Also, I've always wondered why HF decided to call branches "revisions". A lot of people don't know they refer to branches from what I've gathered.

Git revisions are broader than simply "branches". A git revision can be any ref: a commit hash, a tag, a branch, etc. Typically, PRs are pushed to a special ref refs/pr/<pr_num> (e.g. "refs/pr/1"). In the context of a push to a HF repository, it mainly refers to branches, PR refs and refs/convert/parquet for datasets. This is why it's safe to create a branch when the revision is not found + --create-pr is not set (see PR).

[Wauplin]

PR is merged! #1857

It will be shipped in next release. In the meantime feel free to install huggingface_hub from source to use it. Thanks for the discussion on this issue @AlpinDale!