Re: [RFC] Introduce .git/BRANCH to point to the current branch

From: Salikh Zakirov <salikh@gmail.com>
Date: Dec 4, 2007, 21:57 UTC
Message-ID: <4755CD32.7040204@gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <m34peyur8r.fsf@roke.D-201>

Jakub Narebski wrote:

Show 6 quoted lines

>> Salikh Zakirov <salikh@gmail.com> writes:
>>> This combination leads to the confusing user experience
>>> if the branch changes independently of the working directory.
>>> This can happen in following cases:
> 
> All those cases are cases of not recommended workflows.

I guess those cases are not recommended exactly because there are prone to causing confusion with current git.

I use multiple workdirs quite often, and by now learned not to check out the same branch in different workdirs, but it would very convenient if it would not be necessary to remember it.

> Please search the archives for idea of BASE extension to index
> (instead of your separate file under .git/refs), and why it is
> not in current git.

I never realized this idea has been already tried. Thanks for the pointer! I would try to use BASE extension.

> BTW. how in your proposal would you detach HEAD?

Deleting .git/BRANCH should be enough. But I cannot see the workflow that would need it. If one checks out older state of the branch, there is no harm in maintaining the BRANCH pointer, as commits done in this state need to be manually merged in order to get into the branch, in the same way as detached head works currently.