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Re: Branches & directories

From
Michael Witten <mfwitten@gmail.com>
Date
Aug 21, 2011, 20:53 UTC
Message-ID
<CAMOZ1BvpnP_729YOHrrPW3B8wa5c4cLyD_qAQ5rTuy0JqNiiXg@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To
<CAE1pOi2r9DT3Y-GxivTZRaNVi=qLOy5=QpQ-_YysOkgqy3iGRQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Sun, Aug 21, 2011 at 13:42 -0700, Hilco Wijbenga <hilco.wijbenga@gmail.com> wrote:

> Isn't a branch simply a way to track changes separately?

Well, what does that mean, really? You can certainly use branches to help you achieve that goal.

In git usage, a `branch' is just a human-readable name for any given commit object; it points to a commit object, and you can change to which commit it points. Furthermore, to help you work with commit lineages, some of the git machinery updates these branches (or `pointers', if you like) automatically (for instance, when you make a new commit object with `git commit', then the `current branch' is updated to point to the newly created commit object).

Of course, 2 different branches may be used to point to the same commit object.

You should really think of your repository as a giant web of commit objects (or, more technically, as a directed acyclic graph where each node is a commit object); a commit object can point 'backwards' towards its parent commit objects. A branch (like `master') just points to one of these commit objects at any given time (that is, a branch just gives a nice human-readable label by which to reference one of these commit objects at any given time).

See here too:
  http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2350536&cid=36903136
Previous: Hilco WijbengaNext: Hilco Wijbenga
Message 12 of 52 in “Branches & directories”
  1. Hilco WijbengaAug 17, 2011
  2. Evan ShelhamerAug 17, 2011
  3. Junio C HamanoAug 17, 2011
  4. Hilco WijbengaAug 17, 2011
  5. Jonathan NiederAug 18, 2011
  6. Hilco WijbengaAug 21, 2011
  7. Michael WittenAug 18, 2011
  8. Michael J GruberAug 18, 2011
  9. Michael WittenAug 18, 2011
  10. Jonathan NiederAug 19, 2011
  11. Hilco WijbengaAug 21, 2011
  12. Michael WittenAug 21, 2011
  13. Hilco WijbengaAug 21, 2011
  14. Michael WittenAug 21, 2011
  15. Hilco WijbengaAug 21, 2011
  16. Michael WittenAug 22, 2011
  17. Hilco WijbengaAug 22, 2011
  18. Hilco WijbengaAug 22, 2011
  19. Michael WittenAug 22, 2011
  20. Hilco WijbengaAug 22, 2011
  21. Kyle MoffettAug 22, 2011
  22. Hilco WijbengaAug 22, 2011
  23. Kyle MoffettAug 22, 2011
  24. Hilco WijbengaAug 22, 2011
  25. Kyle MoffettAug 22, 2011
  26. Hilco WijbengaAug 22, 2011
  27. Restoring timestamps (Re: Branches & directories)Jonathan Nieder, Aug 22, 2011
  28. Hilco WijbengaAug 22, 2011
  29. Jonathan NiederAug 22, 2011
  30. Hilco WijbengaAug 23, 2011
  31. Hilco WijbengaAug 23, 2011
  32. Enrico WeigeltOct 2, 2011
  33. Hilco WijbengaOct 2, 2011
  34. Michael WittenAug 23, 2011
  35. Robin RosenbergOct 2, 2011
  36. Ronan KeryellOct 2, 2011
  37. Matthieu MoyOct 2, 2011
  38. Hilco WijbengaOct 2, 2011
  39. Hilco WijbengaOct 2, 2011
  40. Jeff KingOct 3, 2011
  41. Hilco WijbengaOct 3, 2011
  42. Jeff KingOct 3, 2011
  43. Matthieu MoyOct 3, 2011
  44. Jeff KingOct 3, 2011
  45. Matthieu MoyOct 3, 2011
  46. Jeff KingOct 3, 2011
  47. Junio C HamanoOct 3, 2011
  48. Jeff KingOct 3, 2011
  49. Hilco WijbengaOct 3, 2011
  50. Robin RosenbergOct 3, 2011
  51. Hilco WijbengaOct 3, 2011
  52. Hilco WijbengaOct 2, 2011

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