Re: [PATCH 7/7] Documentation: add "special refs" to the glossary
- From
Patrick Steinhardt <ps@pks.im>
- Date
- Jan 24, 2024, 09:05 UTC
- Message-ID
- <ZbDS6B5mjLeQ8pIy@tanuki>
- In-Reply-To
- <4f60dd83-913d-4c66-989d-282ec1845f4b@gmail.com>
On Tue, Jan 23, 2024 at 04:27:20PM +0000, Phillip Wood wrote:
Show 24 quoted lines
> Hi Patrick > > On 19/01/2024 10:40, Patrick Steinhardt wrote: > > Add the "special refs" term to our glossary. > > Related to this the glossary entry for pseudorefs says > > Pseudorefs are a class of files under `$GIT_DIR` which behave > like refs for the purposes of rev-parse, but which are treated > specially by git. Pseudorefs both have names that are all-caps, > and always start with a line consisting of a > <<def_SHA1,SHA-1>> followed by whitespace. So, HEAD is not a > pseudoref, because it is sometimes a symbolic ref. They might > optionally contain some additional data. `MERGE_HEAD` and > `CHERRY_PICK_HEAD` are examples. Unlike > <<def_per_worktree_ref,per-worktree refs>>, these files cannot > be symbolic refs, and never have reflogs. They also cannot be > updated through the normal ref update machinery. Instead, > they are updated by directly writing to the files. However, > they can be read as if they were refs, so `git rev-parse > MERGE_HEAD` will work. > > which is very file-centric. We should probably update that as we're moving > away from filesystem access except for special refs.
Good point indeed, thanks for the hint! Will update in a future patch series.
Patrick