error: * Ignoring funny ref 'refs/heads/' locally

Jon Seymour· Jun 17, 2009, 12:08 UTC · lore

Can someone tell me why this happens?

    error: * Ignoring funny ref 'refs/heads/' locally

It also happens with 1.6.3.1

$ mkdir root
$ cd root
$ git init
Initialized empty Git repository in /tmp/root/.git/
$ :> .gitignore
$ git add .gitignore
$ git commit -m "initial"
Created initial commit 6a7c768: initial
 0 files changed, 0 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
 create mode 100644 .gitignore
$ cd ..
$ git clone root clone
Initialized empty Git repository in /tmp/clone/.git/
$ cd clone
$ git fetch origin :
error: * Ignoring funny ref 'refs/heads/' locally
$ git --version
git version 1.6.0.4
$ exit

Clemens Buchacher· Jun 17, 2009, 13:38 UTC · re: Jon Seymour · lore

[PATCH] fetch: do not create ref from empty name

Previously, the refspec "<src>:" would be expanded to "<src>:refs/heads/". Instead, treat an empty <dst> just like refspecs without a colon.

Signed-off-by: Clemens Buchacher <drizzd@aon.at>
---

On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 10:08:25PM +1000, Jon Seymour wrote:

> Can someone tell me why this happens?
> 
>     error: * Ignoring funny ref 'refs/heads/' locally

This fixes it.

Note that "git fetch origin :" is short for "git fetch origin HEAD", which stores the remote HEAD in FETCH_HEAD. You probably want "git fetch origin", without an explicit refspec, which defaults to "git fetch origin 'refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*'", i.e. store remote branches in the namespace for tracking branches.

Clemens

 remote.c |    2 +-
 1 files changed, 1 insertions(+), 1 deletions(-)

diff --git a/remote.c b/remote.c
index 08a5964..99e7797 100644
--- a/remote.c
+++ b/remote.c
@@ -1263,7 +1263,7 @@ struct ref *get_remote_ref(const struct ref *remote_refs, const char *name)
 
 static struct ref *get_local_ref(const char *name)
 {
-	if (!name)
+	if (!name || name[0] == '\0')
 		return NULL;
 
 	if (!prefixcmp(name, "refs/"))

-- 
1.6.3.1.147.g637c3