threads / discuss / 29282

Git ghost references

Subject: Git ghost references

## tl;dr

3 messages between Jan 2, 2012 and Jan 3, 2012.

replies: 2people: 2as markdown or json

Chris Leong· Jan 2, 2012, 23:42 UTC · lore

I seem to have a "ghost reference" - ie. I can check out a reference that doesn't appear to exist. Does anyone know what might cause this?

~/gaf-cvs (project-membership)$ g show-ref | grep production
~/gaf-cvs (project-membership)$ g gc --prune=now
Counting objects: 117306, done.
Delta compression using up to 2 threads.
Compressing objects: 100% (25270/25270), done.
Writing objects: 100% (117306/117306), done.
Total 117306 (delta 83839), reused 117283 (delta 83820)
~/gaf-cvs (project-membership)$ g co production
Note: checking out 'production'.

You are in 'detached HEAD' state. You can look around, make experimental changes and commit them, and you can discard any commits you make in this state without impacting any branches by performing another checkout.

If you want to create a new branch to retain commits you create, you may do so (now or later) by using -b with the checkout command again. Example:

  git checkout -b new_branch_name

HEAD is now at ae5b621... Merge branch 'master' of git.freelancer.com:production ~/gaf-cvs ((no branch))$

Johannes Sixt· Jan 3, 2012, 08:23 UTC · re: Chris Leong · lore

Re: Git ghost references

Am 03.01.2012 00:42, schrieb Chris Leong:

Show 7 quoted lines

> I seem to have a "ghost reference" - ie. I can check out a reference
> that doesn't appear to exist. Does anyone know what might cause this?
> 
> ~/gaf-cvs (project-membership)$ g show-ref | grep production
> ~/gaf-cvs (project-membership)$ g co production
> Note: checking out 'production'.
> ...

The most likely reason is that you have a ref 'production' directly in the .git directory. Perhaps you or one of your scripts created it accidentally using 'git update-ref production ae5b621', i.e., without giving the full ref path name.

-- Hannes

Chris Leong· Jan 3, 2012, 08:32 UTC · re: Johannes Sixt · lore

Re: Git ghost references

I did have a production file in my .git and also an empty folder left in my remotes. Thanks heaps!

On Tue, Jan 3, 2012 at 7:23 PM, Johannes Sixt <j6t@kdbg.org> wrote:

Show 15 quoted lines

> Am 03.01.2012 00:42, schrieb Chris Leong:
>> I seem to have a "ghost reference" - ie. I can check out a reference
>> that doesn't appear to exist. Does anyone know what might cause this?
>>
>> ~/gaf-cvs (project-membership)$ g show-ref | grep production
>> ~/gaf-cvs (project-membership)$ g co production
>> Note: checking out 'production'.
>> ...
>
> The most likely reason is that you have a ref 'production' directly in
> the .git directory. Perhaps you or one of your scripts created it
> accidentally using 'git update-ref production ae5b621', i.e., without
> giving the full ref path name.
>
> -- Hannes