From: Nicolas Pitre <nico@fluxnic.net>
Date: Mon, 01 Feb 2010 18:12:20 GMT
Subject: Re: master^ is not a local branch -- huh?!?
Message-ID: <alpine.LFD.2.00.1002011309020.1681@xanadu.home>
In-Reply-To: <7vpr4o3lg9.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>

On Mon, 1 Feb 2010, Junio C Hamano wrote:

> I do not think we need yet another term "scratchpad" for this, but what is
> important is that both introductory and full documentation explain the
> detached HEAD well.
> 
> Currently we say:
> 
>     Detached HEAD
>     -------------
> 
>     It is sometimes useful to be able to 'checkout' a commit that is
>     not at the tip of one of your branches.  The most obvious
>     example is to check out the commit at a tagged official release
>     point, like this:
> 
>     ------------
>     $ git checkout v2.6.18
>     ------------
> 
>     Earlier versions of git did not allow this and asked you to
>     create a temporary branch using the `-b` option, but starting from
>     version 1.5.0, the above command 'detaches' your HEAD from the
>     current branch and directly points at the commit named by the tag
>     (`v2.6.18` in the example above).
> 
> If read carefully (some may argue that it does not need a very careful
> reading to get it, though), this hints that "detached HEAD" state is a
> substitute for using a temporary branch, but it may not be strong enough.
> 
> I thought that a documentation update in this area was already planned?

Jay Soffian (added to CC) agreed to augment the documentation with the 
comprehensive explanation he posted to the list lately.


Nicolas