Re: [PATCH] Proof-of-concept patch to remember what the detached HEAD was

From: Nicolas Pitre <nico@fluxnic.net>
Date: Oct 16, 2009, 20:19 UTC
Message-ID: <alpine.LFD.2.00.0910161557500.20122@xanadu.home>
In-Reply-To: <alpine.LNX.2.00.0910162029460.31673@reaper.quantumfyre.co.uk>

On Fri, 16 Oct 2009, Julian Phillips wrote:

> My interest in this thread is solely that it might provide a mechanism to find
> out which tag was checked out.  So, I'm just chucking in my $0.02 as a user.

Try this:

$ git checkout v1.5.5
Note: moving to 'v1.5.5' which isn't a local branch
If you want to create a new branch from this checkout, you may do so
(now or later) by using -b with the checkout command again. Example:
  git checkout -b <new_branch_name>
HEAD is now at 1d2375d... GIT 1.5.5

[look around, and then ...]

$ git checkout HEAD~2 Previous HEAD position was 1d2375d... GIT 1.5.5 HEAD is now at f61cc48... git-svn: fix following renamed paths when tracking a single path

[go out for lunch ... and forget what this was about.]

$ git reflog -3 f61cc48 HEAD@{0}: checkout: moving from 1d2375d... to HEAD~2 1d2375d HEAD@{1}: checkout: moving from master to v1.5.5 c274db7 HEAD@{2}: pull : Fast forward

Here I have all the information to see what I did, and from what state. I even know that I did a pull on the master branch before moving away from it. The -3 limits the log to 3 entries. With no limit you get it all in your default pager.

So there is no need for another mechanism to find out what tag was actually checked out -- you have it all already.

Nicolas