Re: create reflog for reflog-less ref
- From
brian m. carlson <sandals@crustytoothpaste.net>
- Date
- Feb 26, 2020, 02:39 UTC
- Message-ID
- <20200226023909.GC7911@camp.crustytoothpaste.net>
- In-Reply-To
- <CAOTb1wc2uMSyc7DMau2cWrWtk=_Z94+CCovORj1dGCrwgJhL=w@mail.gmail.com>
On 2020-02-26 at 01:07:35, Chris Jerdonek wrote:
Show 26 quoted lines
> Hi, > > I wanted to ask on this list if there are any supported ways to create > a reflog for an existing ref that doesn't already have a reflog. > > This is more likely to come up for refs not in the standard set (i.e. > HEAD, branches and remote-tracking branches), since reflogs aren't > created by default for those refs. > > The only workaround I could think of is using git-update-ref to delete > the ref, and then immediately recreate it using the `--create-reflog` > option (if that option is needed), e.g.: > > $ git update-ref -d refs/foo/bar > $ git update-ref -m "my message" --create-reflog refs/foo/bar <SHA> > > This seems hacky though because it forces you to pass through a state > where the ref no longer exists. It also requires you to get the ref's > SHA first. > > This Stack Overflow reply from 2016 suggests the idea of using `git > update-ref -m MSG REF REF` to add lines to an existing reflog: > https://stackoverflow.com/questions/36770141/can-i-add-a-line-to-the-reflog/36778898#36778898 > But it doesn't seem to work to create a reflog (and only seemed to > work for me in limited circumstances otherwise, like adding to HEAD's > reflog). (I tried with version 2.25.0.)
There is the option core.logAllRefUpdates, which has the value "always" in more modern versions of Git. The documentation says,
If [the option is set to always, then a missing reflog is automatically created for any ref under refs/.
Now, that assumes that you want reflogs for all your refs, but there's really not much downside to having a reflog and not using it.
-- brian m. carlson: Houston, Texas, US OpenPGP: https://keybase.io/bk2204