Re: [PATCH] builtin-branch: highlight current remote branches with an asterisk

From: Björn Steinbrink <b.steinbrink@gmx.de>
Date: Feb 10, 2009, 08:24 UTC
Message-ID: <20090210082439.GD1320@atjola.homenet>
In-Reply-To: <adf1fd3d0902100002k5d787e2ewe9012b42f943a6a3@mail.gmail.com>

On 2009.02.10 09:02:02 +0100, Santi Béjar wrote:

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> 2009/2/10 Björn Steinbrink <B.Steinbrink@gmx.de>:
> > On 2009.02.09 18:32:06 -0500, Jay Soffian wrote:
> >> Teach git branch -{r,a} how to interpret remote HEADs and highlight the
> >> corresponding remote branch with an asterisk, instead of showing literal
> >> "<remote_name>/HEAD".
> >
> > Hm, what's the use case for having such a marker? And since only "git
> > clone" sets up origin/HEAD, while "git remote add foo git://..." won't
> > create foo/HEAD,
> 
> git remote add -f ... would create it.

No, it won't. Only "git remote add -m <name> ..." would. And there, you have to pass a branchname yourself, "-m HEAD" doesn't do the trick. So there you'd have a "the branch I have selected" instead of "the branch the remote HEAD referenced". Making it quite different from what "git clone" does.

But actually, that looks like a bug. The docs for -m say that it should just override what <name>/HEAD is set to, not that it should be required to cause the <name>/HEAD creation. I'll try to look into that.

Show 6 quoted lines

> > you would get that marker for origin only. Also, the
> > origin/HEAD symref isn't updated, so it doesn't tell you which branch
> > is "active" in the remote repository now, but which one was active when
> > you cloned the repo.
> 
> Maybe there should be a way to update it afterwards.

That may not be the default for remotes added with -m though, as otherwise the -m option to "git remote add" would become quite pointless.

Björn