Re: [PATCH] RFC: A new type of symbolic refs

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Jul 18, 2017, 19:03 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqq60eppnxk.fsf@gitster.mtv.corp.google.com>
In-Reply-To: <CAGZ79kY=j-sgrAFwAhP-_9EKBsa6FXARaVuCxM6gPHV7M+1OAA@mail.gmail.com>

Stefan Beller <sbeller@google.com> writes:

Show 16 quoted lines

>> Even if we limit ourselves to pointing at the index of the
>> superproject, there probably are a handful of interesting issues
>> that need to be clarified (not in the sense of "this and that issues
>> exist, so this won't be a useful feature", but in the sense of "we'd
>> be able to do these useful things using this feature, and we need to
>> fill in more details"), such as:
>>
>>  - Making new commits in the submodule available to the upstream.
>>    Just like a detached HEAD in the submodule, this is not tied to
>>    any concrete branch, and it is unclear how a recursive "push"
>>    from the superproject should propagate the changes to the
>>    upstream of the submodule;
>
> In Gerrit land people are trained to use
>   git push HEAD:refs/for/master
> which would work fine when propagated to the submodule as-is.

What I was alluding to is how you find 'master' in 'for/master', given the submodule HEAD which only says "I point at the index of the superproject". Note that 'master' here refers to a branch in the submodule. If we further limit ourselves and declare that a submodule that uses this external-reference as HEAD must always be on the same branch as the superproject is on, then we can find what branch the superproject is on, and use that.