Re: [PATCH v3 1/2] rebase: skip branch symref aliases

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Aug 6, 2026, 20:12 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqh5l7huuc.fsf@gitster.g>
In-Reply-To: <0844b4e0-679b-4c0a-bea1-5779b4d0489d@gmail.com>

Phillip Wood <phillip.wood123@gmail.com> writes:

Show 24 quoted lines

> On 29/07/2026 15:26, Junio C Hamano wrote:
>> Phillip Wood <phillip.wood123@gmail.com> writes:
>> 
>>>> But that was about a low level mechanism that must be more lenient
>>>> to be usable as repair tools to recover from such a broken state,
>>>> no?
>>>
>>> It checks the new value of HEAD, not the old one so I don't think so.
>>> The commit message talks about topgit using "git symbolic-ref" to set
>>> head outside "refs/heads/" - peff had previously tried to tighten it to
>>> reject non-branch refs but that broke topgit. I've just had a quick look
>>> at the topgit code and still sets HEAD to point to "refs/top-bases/..."
>>> by default[1], although there are plans to start using
>>> "refs/heads/{top-bases}/..." instead.
>> 
>> Ah, that name vaguely rings a bell.  Is it still in use, and now
>> they prevent us from forbidding funny characters like {} in the
>> refname?  Sigh...
>
> Yes, it still seems to be maintained, I guess they chose the funny 
> characters to try and avoid name collisions because no-one would want 
> them in a "normal" branch name.
>
> Thanks

I guess I dropped the ball here. So given that we are OK to see HEAD pointing outside refs/heads/, this subthread should be closed.

My understanding is that we still have an issue reported by Erik in <amSSYagL0jTgzElD@mbp> that needs to be addressed before this topic can move further?

Thanks.