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[PATCH v1 0/3] War on "work tree"

From
Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date
Nov 11, 2025, 19:58 UTC
Message-ID
<20251111195853.2511146-1-gitster@pobox.com>
There are "working tree", which is explained as
	The tree of actual checked out files.  The working tree normally
	contains the contents of the <<def_HEAD,HEAD>> commit's tree,
	plus any local changes that you have made but not yet committed.
and "worktree", which is explained as
	A repository can have zero (i.e. bare repository) or one or
	more worktrees attached to it. One "worktree" consists of a
	"working tree" and repository metadata, most of which are
	shared among other worktrees of a single repository, and
	some of which are maintained separately per worktree
	(e.g. the index, HEAD and pseudorefs like MERGE_HEAD,
	per-worktree refs and per-worktree configuration file).

in the glossary, but there are many documentation pages that talk about "work tree". Most of them were written before the worktree mechanism was invented (i.e., back when contrib/workdir was the only hacky mechanism to attach more than one directories to the same repository) and they use "work tree" (two words) to mean what we call "working tree" these days.

This patch series updates our documentation to use either "working tree" or "worktree" as appropriate.

Junio C Hamano (3):
  notes doc: call NOTES_MERGE_WORKTREE a "worktree", not "work tree"
  Documentation: your checkout directory is "working tree" (part 1)
  Documentation: your checkout directory is "working tree" (part 2)
 Documentation/diff-format.adoc     |  2 +-
 Documentation/diff-options.adoc    |  2 +-
 Documentation/git-add.adoc         |  4 ++--
 Documentation/git-grep.adoc        |  2 +-
 Documentation/git-hash-object.adoc |  2 +-
 Documentation/git-notes.adoc       |  4 ++--
 Documentation/git-read-tree.adoc   | 16 ++++++++--------
 Documentation/git-rev-parse.adoc   |  4 ++--
 Documentation/git-rm.adoc          |  8 ++++----
 Documentation/git-stash.adoc       |  2 +-
 Documentation/git-status.adoc      | 14 +++++++-------
 Documentation/git-submodule.adoc   |  4 ++--
 Documentation/gitattributes.adoc   | 16 ++++++++--------
 Documentation/gitcli.adoc          | 12 ++++++------
 Documentation/gitmodules.adoc      |  2 +-
 Documentation/user-manual.adoc     |  8 ++++----
 16 files changed, 51 insertions(+), 51 deletions(-)
-- 
2.52.0-rc1-455-g30608eb744
Next: Junio C Hamano
Message 1 of 5 in “War on "work tree"”
  1. 0/3 War on "work tree"Junio C Hamano, Nov 11, 2025
  2. 1/3 notes doc: call NOTES_MERGE_WORKTREE a "worktree", not "work tree"Junio C Hamano, Nov 11, 2025
  3. 2/3 Documentation: your checkout directory is "working tree" (part 1)Junio C Hamano, Nov 11, 2025
  4. Patrick SteinhardtNov 12, 2025
  5. 3/3 Documentation: your checkout directory is "working tree" (part 2)Junio C Hamano, Nov 11, 2025

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