Re: Should `@` be really a valid git tag name?

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Sep 17, 2021, 20:53 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqq4kaihqjj.fsf@gitster.g>
In-Reply-To: <CAPUEspjbiNtffXatzNUUFYyZKRjcqetOTVqQX+MgZf_AJq9hnA@mail.gmail.com>

Carlo Arenas <carenas@gmail.com> writes:

Show 6 quoted lines

> On Fri, Sep 17, 2021 at 7:12 AM <gitmailinglist.bentolor@xoxy.net> wrote:
>>
>> A SO commenter pointed out, that git-check-ref-format forbids @ and
>> maybe I should report this as a potential bug. Is it?
>
> a reference that is named "@" only is invalid, but refs/tags/@ is not.

;-)

"git check-ref-format master ; echo $?" would show that any single level name is "forbidden", so probably the SO commenter (whatever that is) was confused---it is not about @ at all.

In any case, a tag whose name is @ may be another source of confusion in the modern world, after we added @ as a synonym to HEAD. I do not know, for example, offhand which between the HEAD or that tag "git show @" would choose. It makes sense to avoid it.