Issue with gitweb + tag + branch of the same name from master branch commit

Greetings git folks,

I have recently been trying to make a tag and branch of the same name from a previous <COMMIT> on a master branch on a kernel.org tree using the following commands:

	# Create the tag:
	git tag -a lio-x.y <COMMIT>
	# Push the tags:
	git push --tags origin
	# Fetch to be sure
	git fetch origin
	# Make tagged branch:
	git checkout -b lio-x.y <COMMIT>
	# Make <NEW_COMMIT> to lio-x.y and commit
        git commit frob
	# Switch back to master branch
	git checkout master
	# Push local branch to origin
	git push origin refs/heads/lio-x.y

At this point after pushing to origin, I can do a fresh clone of the tree, and do a 'git checkout origin/lio-x.y and I see '<NEW_COMMIT>', and the logs and blobs look as expected..

However, after checking gitweb log for branch lio-x.y on kernel.org, I only see <COMMIT>, and not <NEW_COMMIT>, and all of the blobs in branch lio-x.y still reference the original <COMMIT>, et al.

John Hawley has been helping to resolve the issue (I am just going to use different tag/branch names instead), and hpa asked me to report this as it is easy to reproduce with the gitweb version on kernel.org..

Here is a bit of the IRC log:

22:30 < nab> Hmm, I wonder if the fact that I was tagging a commit from master, and then branching using the same 
             commit ID to a tag of the same name as the branch..?
22:33 < warthog9> not use the same name, I think what your doing is fine just the identical naming is whats 
                  causing the problem
22:33 < warthog9> like tag-lio-3.0
22:33 < nab> Ahhhhhh
22:33 < warthog9> and branch: lio-3.0
22:34 < warthog9> since I think somewhere in git it's got two different orders of preference for tag vs. branch
22:34 < nab> Ok, so I should just delete the branch and tags and redo with diff names..?
22:34 < warthog9> one operation is using the tag, one is using the branch and we are seeing the conflicting 
                  results

<SNIP> warthog9 makes somechanges to git repo with gitweb issues </SNIP>

22:40 < warthog9> that *looks* right to me now?
22:40 < nab> Yep, looks correct
22:41 < warthog9> so yeah, git is getting confused
22:41 < warthog9> ok so my theory is right, it's getting confused between the tag / branch
22:41 < nab> the blob for the ./autoconfigure is correct as well..
22:42 < nab> Ok, I have no problem using different names.. :-)
22:42 < warthog9> I would got show this to the git people, it *could* just be an old bug in gitweb (ours is not 
                  particularly up to date) but if I can replicate it here easily enough I'm guessing there's 
                  still a bug elsewhere

Many thanks for your most valuable of time,

--nab

"Nicholas A. Bellinger" <nab@linux-iscsi.org> writes:

I do not speak for gitweb but we typically favor tags over heads. The only place "branch name" take precedence is where the command expects to see a name of a branch, when it can also take any arbitrary object name, and changes behaviour. I.e. "git checkout X", when X is a branch name, checks out the branch so that the next commit advances the tip of that branch.

"Nicholas A. Bellinger" <nab@linux-iscsi.org> writes:

But why?  Why do you want to confuse git and yourself?

I guess that you meant here gitweb's 'log' / 'shortlog' view linked
from 'heads' view, don't you?
 

This is an old and long fixed (or rather worked around) issue in gitweb, fixed in bf901f8 (gitweb: disambiguate heads and tags withs the same name, 2007-12-15)... well if by fixed you can consider passing around "fully qualified" refnames, i.e. the 'shortlog' link in 'heads' view now uses 'refs/heads/frob', and not only 'frob'.

J.H., you might want to consider cherry-picking this... unless you have done that, or independently fixed this issue.

Greetings Jakub,

On Fri, 2009-08-21 at 15:49 -0700, Jakub Narebski wrote:

I stumbled the strangeness in k.o gitweb due to my inexperience with git tagging+branch.. I absoulutely agree that it makes more sense to use different names for these, and that is what I am doing from now on.. :-)

That is correct..

Cool, I am hear it has already been fixed.

--nab