Re: Q: ".git/HEAD" and ".git/refs/heads"

From: Matthieu Moy <matthieu.moy@grenoble-inp.fr>
Date: Apr 2, 2014, 17:54 UTC
Message-ID: <vpqob0jwrbb.fsf@anie.imag.fr>
In-Reply-To: <533C404F020000A1000151CE@gwsmtp1.uni-regensburg.de>

"Ulrich Windl" <Ulrich.Windl@rz.uni-regensburg.de> writes:

Show 9 quoted lines

> Hi!
>
> I have a small question: After a "git gc" with last commit being "[shared 2679648]" I found this:
>> cat .git/HEAD
> ref: refs/heads/shared
>> cat .git/refs/heads/shared
> cat: .git/refs/heads/shared: No such file or directory
>
> Is this intentional?

Yes.

> commit in these files: .git/logs/HEAD .git/logs/refs/heads/shared
> .git/info/refs .git/packed-refs

Yes, they are where the refs are stored. If you have many refs in your repository, having one file per ref is inefficient. It's more efficient for Git to have one big read-only file. When one ref is modified, the .git/refs/heads/$branch file is re-created, and the packed entry is ignored.

Show 5 quoted lines

>             if [ -d .git ]; then
>                 GIT_HEAD="$(<.git/HEAD)"
>                 GIT_BRANCH="${GIT_HEAD##*/}"
>                 GIT_HEAD="Git:$GIT_BRANCH-$(cut -c1-7 .git/${GIT_HEAD##*: })"
>             fi

Don't access the filesystem. Ask Git.

GIT_FULL_BRANCH=$(git rev-parse --symbolic-full-name HEAD) GIT_BRANCH="${GIT_FULL_BRANCH##*/}" GIT_HEAD="Git:$GIT_BRANCH-$(git rev-parse --short HEAD)"

(Perhaps there's a simpler way without $GIT_FULL_BRANCH)

-- 
Matthieu Moy
http://www-verimag.imag.fr/~moy/