Re: GIT and the current -stable

From: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Date: Apr 14, 2007, 17:34 UTC
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.64.0704141028460.5473@woody.linux-foundation.org>
In-Reply-To: <7vfy73bhik.fsf@assigned-by-dhcp.cox.net>

On Fri, 13 Apr 2007, Junio C Hamano wrote:

Show 7 quoted lines

> 
> I think adding these lines to .git/config would do the trick,
> after you have done the "checkout -b v2.6.20 v2.6.20" step:
> 
> [branch "v2.6.20"]
> 	remote = stable
> 	merge = refs/heads/master

Please don't do this. Using the same name for a branch as for a tag is madness. Call it "v2.6.20-stable" or anything else, but don't re-use the same naming as for tags.

Sure, git will have some random well-defined order of parsing which one "v2.6.20" actually means in any particular context (usually the tag-name will take precedence, except for contexts where the branchname is required!), and yeah, you can always make things unambiguous by specifying the full name (ie say "[refs/]tags/v2.6.20" when you want to make sure it's unambiguously the tag, not the branch) but it's still guaranteed to cause confusion at *some* level, if only for the user.

So just don't do it.

		Linus