Re: [PATCH] Documentation: Define symref and update HEAD description

From: Junio C Hamano <junkio@cox.net>
Date: Nov 18, 2006, 19:55 UTC
Message-ID: <7v64dccyx2.fsf@assigned-by-dhcp.cox.net>
In-Reply-To: <20061118194408.27106.65771.stgit@machine.or.cz>

Petr Baudis <pasky@suse.cz> writes:

Show 13 quoted lines

> HEAD was still described as a symlink instead of a symref.
>...
>  HEAD::
> +	A symref (see glossary) to the `refs/heads/` namespace
> +	describing the currently active branch.  It does not mean
> +	much if the repository is not associated with any working tree
>  	(i.e. a 'bare' repository), but a valid git repository
> +	*must* have the HEAD file; some porcelains may use it to
> +	guess the designated "default" branch of the repository
> +	(usually 'master').  It is legal if the named branch
> +	'name' does not (yet) exist.  In some legacy setups, it is
> +	a symbolic link instead of a symref, but this has been
> +	deprecated long ago.

We fully support dealing with repositories with symlinked HEAD, and will continue to do so; I do not think we ever talked about deprecating it. Public "distribution point" repositories that have been established long ago that do not have reason to switch HEAD to point at different branch still have symlinked HEAD and they should continue to work.

What we _don't_ do these days is to set up new repositories with symlinked HEAD, but that does not have anything to do with deprecating symlinked HEAD.