Re: Re* [RFC/PATCH] extend meaning of "--root" option to index comparisons

From: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date: Sep 22, 2008, 13:15 UTC
Message-ID: <20080922131556.GA7133@sigill.intra.peff.net>
In-Reply-To: <3665a1a00809210858r1c494d22p77b5e9964c06424e@mail.gmail.com>

On Sun, Sep 21, 2008 at 08:58:30AM -0700, Anatol Pomozov wrote:

Show 8 quoted lines

> revision is broken (like we have a junk in the HEAD file) from the
> case when "branch is not created yet" (which is part of normal
> workflow).
> 
> What about following algorithm. HEAD points to ref and ref is not
> created yet. Additional check could be
>  a) there are no other refs
>  or/and b) object database is empty

I don't think those things have to do with "branch not created yet". They are about "repository has no branches".

The only thing that indicates you a branch has not been created is the absence of that ref. So you really have two situations there:

  1. a symref like HEAD points to a branch that does not exist

  2. the user inputs a ref-name that does not exist

In the former, that means we are on a branch that hasn't been created yet (which generally does mean a new repo, but it's possible to reach this state in other ways). Or it means somebody made a mistake when they updated the symref.

In the latter, it _could_ mean that we are interested in a branch yet to be born, but in general we consider it to mean the user made a typo.

-Peff