Re: Cloning empty repositories, was Re: What is the idea for bare repositories?

From: Johannes Schindelin <johannes.schindelin@gmx.de>
Date: Nov 12, 2007, 17:54 UTC
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.64.0711121751100.4362@racer.site>
In-Reply-To: <alpine.LFD.0.9999.0711121231150.21255@xanadu.home>

Hi,

On Mon, 12 Nov 2007, Nicolas Pitre wrote:

Show 23 quoted lines

> On Mon, 12 Nov 2007, Johannes Schindelin wrote:
> 
> > On Mon, 12 Nov 2007, Matthieu Moy wrote:
> > 
> > > Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de> writes:
> > > 
> > > > On Mon, 12 Nov 2007, Jan Wielemaker wrote:
> > > >
> > > >> I found out that cloning a empty bare repository produces nothing 
> > > >> at all, [...]
> > > >
> > > > If they are empty, what exactly do you mean to clone?
> > > 
> > > I'd expect an empty repository, with the git remote configured 
> > > correctly.
> > 
> > Yeah, right.
> > 
> > Last time I checked, those geneticists did not clone thin air.  They 
> > always waited until they had something to clone.
> 
> But we're not geneticists, and I think the above usage should "just work 
> (tm)".

I am still convinced that it is not very intelligent to start your development from a non-existing branch.

But since you're one of the people knowing git _internals_ pretty well, here's another reason just for you why this cannot be done: There is no way to find out where the HEAD points to.

Try it. Create an empty repository. Then call "git ls-remote <path>" on it. It's _empty_.

Ciao, Dscho "who is bored with this discussion"