From: Patrick Steinhardt <ps@pks.im>
Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2024 09:05:44 GMT
Subject: Re: [PATCH 7/7] Documentation: add "special refs" to the glossary
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:
> 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