Status code 300 (Multiple Choices)

[mwriter]

func GetArchiveLink(client *github.Client, ctx context.Context) (*url.URL, error) {
    return client.Repositories.GetArchiveLink(ctx, "pelletier", "git-src", "zipball", &github.RepositoryContentGetOptions{ Ref: "master" }, 100);
}

Output:

unexpected status code: 300 Multiple Choices

Is it possible to add a return to at least one of the links?
Or it's better to add a new api such as client.Repositories.GetArchiveLinks which will return all links at once.

[gmlewis]

When running this command via curl, I see the following:

$ curl -i -X GET \
>   'https://api.github.com/repos/pelletier/git-src/zipball/master' \
>   -H 'Accept: application/vnd.github.v3+json' \
>   -H 'User-Agent: go-github/v73.0.0' \
>   -H 'X-Github-Api-Version: 2022-11-28'
HTTP/2 300
date: Mon, 21 Jul 2025 11:28:47 GMT
content-type: application/json; charset=utf-8
content-length: 291
x-github-media-type: github.v3; format=json
link: <https://github.com/pelletier/git-src/zipball/refs/heads/master>; rel="alternate", <https://github.com/pelletier/git-src/zipball/refs/tags/master>; rel="alternate"
x-github-api-version-selected: 2022-11-28
x-ratelimit-limit: 60
x-ratelimit-remaining: 60
x-ratelimit-reset: 1753100927
x-ratelimit-used: 0
x-ratelimit-resource: core
access-control-expose-headers: ETag, Link, Location, Retry-After, X-GitHub-OTP, X-RateLimit-Limit, X-RateLimit-Remaining, X-RateLimit-Used, X-RateLimit-Resource, X-RateLimit-Reset, X-OAuth-Scopes, X-Accepted-OAuth-Scopes, X-Poll-Interval, X-GitHub-Media-Type, X-GitHub-SSO, X-GitHub-Request-Id, Deprecation, Sunset
access-control-allow-origin: *
strict-transport-security: max-age=31536000; includeSubdomains; preload
x-frame-options: deny
x-content-type-options: nosniff
x-xss-protection: 0
referrer-policy: origin-when-cross-origin, strict-origin-when-cross-origin
content-security-policy: default-src 'none'
vary: Accept-Encoding, Accept, X-Requested-With
server: github.com
x-github-request-id: F3B0:FCB6D:5991F4:B5015D:687E24A5

{"message":"'master' has multiple possibilities: https://github.com/pelletier/git-src/zipball/refs/heads/master, https://github.com/pelletier/git-src/zipball/refs/tags/master","documentation_url":"https://docs.github.com/rest/repos/contents#download-a-repository-archive-zip","status":"300"}

Which means that we should be able to make this information available to the client.

I'll open up this issue as an enhancement that can be made to our client library.

[gmlewis]

Is it possible to add a return to at least one of the links?
Or it's better to add a new api such as client.Repositories.GetArchiveLinks which will return all links at once.

It seems to me that it might be most useful to return the information in the single call since the response was already returned with all the information. We would probably have to make the message and documentation_url fields available and/or attempt to parse them.

Do you want to work on this issue, @mwriter, or would you like me to open this up to our amazing contributors to this repo?

[mwriter]

Do you want to work on this issue, @mwriter, or would you like me to open this up to our amazing contributors to this repo?

I hope Google has the resources to improve the code without me ;)
I'm ready to participate in any discussions but you know own api better for implementing specific changes :)

[gmlewis]

This would be a great PR for any new contributor to this repo or a new Go developer.
All contributions are greatly appreciated!

Feel free to volunteer for any issue and the issue can be assigned to you so that others don't attempt to duplicate the work.
Also feel free to perform a code review on any PR that has the label "NeedsReview" - we appreciate those contributions too!
We have a REVIEWERS file that you could add your username to if you are willing to be contacted when reviews are needed.

Please check out our CONTRIBUTING.md guide to get started. (In particular, please remember to go generate ./... and don't use force-push to your PRs.)

Thank you!

[mwriter]

Thank you!

Thank you for a great project!
It would be great if it also covered Gitlab 💫

[gmlewis]

It would be great if it also covered Gitlab 💫

Sounds like that would be a great (separate) project in a different repo.

[kuzminT]

It would be great if it also covered Gitlab

GitLab already has its own official SDK for Go, available on GitLab. In case you're looking for one ;) Their API is different from GitHub’s.

[alexandear]

I'm not sure if we should handle the undocumented status code 300, as it significantly complicates the code and GitHub might change its behavior in the future. It's better to use a proper ref (https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Git-Internals-Git-References): refs/heads/master for the master branch and refs/tags/master for the master tag.

Branch master:

$  curl -i -X GET \
   'https://api.github.com/repos/pelletier/git-src/zipball/refs/heads/master' \
   -H 'Accept: application/vnd.github.v3+json' \
   -H 'User-Agent: go-github/v73.0.0' \
   -H 'X-Github-Api-Version: 2022-11-28'

HTTP/2 302 
date: Tue, 22 Jul 2025 14:03:33 GMT
content-type: text/html;charset=utf-8
content-length: 0
cache-control: public, must-revalidate, max-age=0
expires: Tue, 22 Jul 2025 14:03:33 GMT
location: https://codeload.github.com/pelletier/git-src/legacy.zip/refs/heads/master
x-github-api-version-selected: 2022-11-28
x-ratelimit-limit: 60
x-ratelimit-remaining: 60
x-ratelimit-reset: 1753196613
x-ratelimit-used: 0
x-ratelimit-resource: core
access-control-expose-headers: ETag, Link, Location, Retry-After, X-GitHub-OTP, X-RateLimit-Limit, X-RateLimit-Remaining, X-RateLimit-Used, X-RateLimit-Resource, X-RateLimit-Reset, X-OAuth-Scopes, X-Accepted-OAuth-Scopes, X-Poll-Interval, X-GitHub-Media-Type, X-GitHub-SSO, X-GitHub-Request-Id, Deprecation, Sunset
access-control-allow-origin: *
strict-transport-security: max-age=31536000; includeSubdomains; preload
x-frame-options: deny
x-content-type-options: nosniff
x-xss-protection: 0
referrer-policy: origin-when-cross-origin, strict-origin-when-cross-origin
content-security-policy: default-src 'none'
vary: Accept-Encoding, Accept, X-Requested-With
server: github.com
x-github-request-id: A5D7:1D88C4:2C5FC8B:2D3C116:687F9A35

Tag master:

$ curl -i -X GET \
   'https://api.github.com/repos/pelletier/git-src/zipball/refs/tags/master' \
   -H 'Accept: application/vnd.github.v3+json' \
   -H 'User-Agent: go-github/v73.0.0' \
   -H 'X-Github-Api-Version: 2022-11-28'

HTTP/2 302 
date: Tue, 22 Jul 2025 14:04:30 GMT
content-type: text/html;charset=utf-8
content-length: 0
cache-control: public, must-revalidate, max-age=0
expires: Tue, 22 Jul 2025 14:04:30 GMT
location: https://codeload.github.com/pelletier/git-src/legacy.zip/refs/tags/master
x-github-api-version-selected: 2022-11-28
x-ratelimit-limit: 60
x-ratelimit-remaining: 60
x-ratelimit-reset: 1753196670
x-ratelimit-used: 0
x-ratelimit-resource: core
access-control-expose-headers: ETag, Link, Location, Retry-After, X-GitHub-OTP, X-RateLimit-Limit, X-RateLimit-Remaining, X-RateLimit-Used, X-RateLimit-Resource, X-RateLimit-Reset, X-OAuth-Scopes, X-Accepted-OAuth-Scopes, X-Poll-Interval, X-GitHub-Media-Type, X-GitHub-SSO, X-GitHub-Request-Id, Deprecation, Sunset
access-control-allow-origin: *
strict-transport-security: max-age=31536000; includeSubdomains; preload
x-frame-options: deny
x-content-type-options: nosniff
x-xss-protection: 0
referrer-policy: origin-when-cross-origin, strict-origin-when-cross-origin
content-security-policy: default-src 'none'
vary: Accept-Encoding, Accept, X-Requested-With
server: github.com
x-github-request-id: A43C:1CFCF9:2F41702:301E2B8:687F9A6E

[gmlewis]

It's better to use a proper ref...

Sounds good to me, @alexandear - is there anything we can do better in this repo to help users easily find and use this ref, or do you think what we currently have is sufficient?

[mwriter]

GitLab already has its own official SDK for Go, available on GitLab. In case you're looking for one ;) Their API is different from GitHub’s.

Yes, Gitlab API is different there but the implementation is still worse there. And here it's perfectly done with a minimum number of dependencies.

refs/heads/master for the master branch

How can I do this via go-github?
It seems that GetArchiveLink is the only way to get archive links by branches, tags and commits.
Or is it about making queries manually? Then it can be done without go-github ;)
The greatness of this project lies precisely in the concealment of routine things.

[mwriter]

It's better to use a proper ref (https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Git-Internals-Git-References): refs/heads/master for the master branch and refs/tags/master for the master tag.

In general, it really works but the whole point of the project is lost.
You will either have to handle this case yourself or get out all the processing to the user.
In addition there are several more methods that fall under the problem
github.RepositoryRelease.GetTarballURL
github.RepositoryRelease.GetZipballURL
And it's possible that and
github.RepositoryTag.GetTarballURL
github.RepositoryTag.GetZipballURL

[alexandear]

How can I do this via go-github? It seems that GetArchiveLink is the only way to get archive links by branches, tags and commits. Or is it about making queries manually? Then it can be done without go-github ;) The greatness of this project lies precisely in the concealment of routine things.

In case someone reading this issue is interested:

package main

import (
	"context"
	"flag"
	"log"

	"github.com/google/go-github/v73/github"
)

func main() {
	var (
		token         string
		archiveFormat string
		ref           string
	)
	flag.StringVar(&token, "gh_token", "", "GitHub token")
	flag.StringVar(&archiveFormat, "archive_format", "zipball", "Zipball or tarball")
	flag.StringVar(&ref, "ref", "", "Git reference, can be empty. E.g., `refs/heads/<BRANCH>`, `refs/tags/<TAG>`")
	flag.Parse()

	client := github.NewClient(nil).WithAuthToken(token)
	url, _, err := client.Repositories.GetArchiveLink(context.Background(), "pelletier", "git-src", github.ArchiveFormat(archiveFormat),
		&github.RepositoryContentGetOptions{
			Ref: ref,
		}, 1)
	if err != nil {
		log.Fatal(err)
	}
	log.Printf("URL: %#v\n", url)
}

$ go run . -gh_token github_pat_token -archive_format tarball -ref refs/heads/main
2025/07/23 11:55:19 URL: &url.URL{Scheme:"https", Opaque:"", User:(*url.Userinfo)(nil), Host:"codeload.github.com", Path:"/pelletier/git-src/legacy.tar.gz/refs/heads/main", RawPath:"", OmitHost:false, ForceQuery:false, RawQuery:"", Fragment:"", RawFragment:""}

The ref can be without refs/ prefix.

$ go run . -gh_token github_pat_token -archive_format tarball -ref tags/main
2025/07/23 16:02:30 URL: &url.URL{Scheme:"https", Opaque:"", User:(*url.Userinfo)(nil), Host:"codeload.github.com", Path:"/pelletier/git-src/legacy.tar.gz/tags/master", RawPath:"", OmitHost:false, ForceQuery:false, RawQuery:"", Fragment:"", RawFragment:""}

[alexandear]

It's better to use a proper ref...

Sounds good to me, @alexandear - is there anything we can do better in this repo to help users easily find and use this ref, or do you think what we currently have is sufficient?

I think we can extend the documentation.