Re: Missing features in git

From: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
Date: Nov 14, 2006, 18:40 UTC
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.64.0611141037120.3327@woody.osdl.org>
In-Reply-To: <20061114174939.GB4299@spearce.org>

On Tue, 14 Nov 2006, Shawn Pearce wrote:

Show 16 quoted lines

> Jakub Narebski <jnareb@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Dnia wtorek 14. listopada 2006 18:36, Karl Hasselström napisa?:
> > >
> > > For example, we could skip the "bisect" branch, since
> > > you aren't supposed to commit to that anyway.
> > 
> > Well, to have "branch" to which you could not commit, just put ref
> > outside refs/heads. 
> > 
> > Another solution would be to be able to put non-head ref in HEAD,
> > but allow to commit only if the prefix is refs/heads/
> 
> That's not a bad idea.  Then you can checkout a tag and have
> 'ref: refs/tags/v1.11' in HEAD, which means anyone who puts
> $(git-symbolic-ref) calls into their PS1 will see "refs/tags/v1.11"
> as their current branch, reminding them they are looking at the past.

I agree. This would probably be a good way to do "read-only branches".

Allowing people to do a "git checkout" on anything committish, but then not allowing them to commit to that, is probably the right thing to do.

Together with a nice readable error message from "git commit" (and merge, and pull - although you might well allow "fetch" to update the thing that current HEAD points to, though), this would be a lot easier to use for people who just follow somebody elses branch.

Junio, what do you think? It wouldn't even be backwards incompatible, because we're strictly allowing a superset of what we used to..

			Linus