Re: [PATCH] tone down the detached head warning

From: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date: Feb 1, 2007, 03:54 UTC
Message-ID: <20070201035450.GA2862@coredump.intra.peff.net>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.64.0701312238420.3021@xanadu.home>

On Wed, Jan 31, 2007 at 10:47:31PM -0500, Nicolas Pitre wrote:

> But this language convey the truth and users will have to get used to it 
> at some point. We should not hide the fact that HEAD is really detached at
> that point, otherwise it could be presumed that a commit might update the
> checked out (tracking) branch which is obviously not the case.

OK, so let's not lie about it, then. But that doesn't mean we can't explain further. What about:

$ git checkout origin/pu Detached your HEAD (based on remote origin/pu) -- you are not on any branch ...

Except that I think the line is getting a bit long. But the point is to explain _why_ we're detached (you could even put a different note for tags). If a user already knows that 'git checkout v1.4.4.4' is going to put him in a detached state, then he doesn't really care about the message one way or the other. But if he doesn't know (and there is no clue on the command line, except for the fact that we already know v1.4.4.4 is a tag and origin/pu is a remote tracking branch), then it might make it more why it happened.

-Peff