Re: Git branch bug

From: Daniel Barkalow <barkalow@iabervon.org>
Date: May 6, 2007, 16:16 UTC
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.64.0705061141170.28708@iabervon.org>
In-Reply-To: <7vabwih3bd.fsf@assigned-by-dhcp.cox.net>

On Sat, 5 May 2007, Junio C Hamano wrote:

Show 23 quoted lines

> Daniel Barkalow <barkalow@iabervon.org> writes:
> 
> > This leaves open the question of how you make your initial commit in a 
> > branch that isn't master. I think the answer should be:
> >
> >  $ git checkout -b experimental
> >  warning: You appear to be on a branch yet to be born.
> >  warning: Forcing checkout of HEAD.
> >  fatal: just how do you expect me to merge 0 trees?
> >
> > Which should probably be:
> >
> >  $ git checkout -b experimental
> >  warning: You appear to be on a branch yet to be born.
> >  warning: Putting you on a new branch yet to be born.
> >
> > And leaving .git/HEAD pointing to refs/heads/experimental instead of 
> > refs/heads/master, with refs/heads/ still empty.
> 
> While I agree that is probably correct, it would not be useful
> in real-life that much.  When you do not even have 'master', I
> do not think there is much point of being able to create two
> useless, yet-to-be-born branches.

The point is that you may not want to have a branch named "master", but rather want your first branch to be named something else. Your project could be such that "master" would be a confusing term to use for a default branch. Currently, it's awkward to start a project that avoids that particular name, which is what it seemed to me that the original poster was trying to do.

I don't think it's useful to be able to switch to a new yet-to-be-born branch from any other state, but I do think it's useful to be able to choose what the first branch is.

	-Daniel
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