Re: Terminology question about remote branches.

From: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date: Aug 4, 2007, 12:02 UTC
Message-ID: <20070804120243.GB9716@coredump.intra.peff.net>
In-Reply-To: <854pjfin68.fsf@lola.goethe.zz>

On Sat, Aug 04, 2007 at 12:55:43PM +0200, David Kastrup wrote:

> A local branch is one with a local branch head.  In contrast, checking
> out a remote branch, while possible, leaves one with a detached head.

Yes, if by "remote branch" you mean a "remote tracking branch".

> "remote-tracking" basically means that git-pull will update the branch
> according to changes in the remote repository.

A "remote tracking branch" is a branch in refs/remotes/* that is updated by _git-fetch_ (which is in turn called by git-pull) to track a remote's position of a branch.

A local branch which tracks a remote branch (I don't recall seeing the phrase "remote-tracking" -- where did this come from?) has the correct magic in .git/config to pull from a specific remote branch when 'git-pull' is given without arguments.

> Creating a branch using git-branch or git-checkout will always create
> a local branch which may or may not be remote-tracking according to
> the --no-track or --track options.

Yes, although again, I think calling it a "remote-tracking branch" to mean "a local branch that tracks a remote branch" is confusingly similar to the more common "remote tracking branch" to mean "a branch in refs/remotes that track's a remote repository's idea of a branch".

Show 6 quoted lines

> So there are basically three types of branches in a repository that I
> can see:
> 
> local branch, not remote-tracking
> local branch, remote-tracking
> remote branch, remote-tracking

No, the remote branch is not remote-tracking in the sense that you defined above; it is not meant to be pulled into.

I think you are confused by two uses of the word "track". In one case, we mean that git-fetch will remember the remote's idea of a branch in refs/remotes/<remote>/<branch>. In another, we mean that a local branch will default to pulling from a particular (remote,branch) combination.

> So the terminology seems fuzzy at the moment, and my attempt to clear
> it up might not be the preferred way of doing it.

Yes, it is very fuzzy. Using "track" for the concept of a local branch defaulting to a particular (remote,branch) pair for git-pull is, I think, more recent and less used. If there were another term for this, it might be more clear.

-Peff