threads / discuss / 29915

Git clone behave strange after active branch change in bare repo

Subject: Git clone behave strange after active branch change in bare repo

## tl;dr

2 messages between Mar 12, 2012 and Mar 12, 2012.

replies: 1people: 2as markdown or json

Zdenek Crha· Mar 12, 2012, 10:10 UTC · lore

Hello,

I'm trying to change active branch on bare repository to force checkout of different branch than master when directory is cloned. The git version I'm using is 1.7.9.1 from debian repository.

I've used git-symbolic-ref to change active branch without problem:

$ cd repository.git
$ git branch
* master
$ git branch a_branch
$ git symbolic-ref HEAD refs/heads/a_branch
$ cat HEAD
ref: refs/heads/a_branch

When I run git clone while 'master' and 'a_branch' point to same commit, I will get clone with default branch 'master' where I would expect default branch 'a_branch'.

$ cd .. && git clone repository.git repo
$ cd repo && git branch
* master

I've tried to remove master branch and I've got result I've expected - new clone has one branch checked out, the 'a_branch'. But then I created another branch on the commit pointed by active branch and tried to clone:

$ cd repository.git && git branch AAA
$ cd .. && git clone repository.git
$ cd repo && git branch
* AAA

I did few more checks and it seems to me that:

* when active branch is 'master' then default branch in clone is
always master as expected
* when active branch is different from 'master', then the default
branch in clone is a first branch in alfabetically sorted list of
branches that point to same commit as active branch

Is this behaviour correct or did I run into a bug?

Regards, Zdenek Crha

Jeff King· Mar 12, 2012, 11:12 UTC · re: Zdenek Crha · lore

Re: Git clone behave strange after active branch change in bare repo

On Mon, Mar 12, 2012 at 11:10:03AM +0100, Zdenek Crha wrote:

> When I run git clone while 'master' and 'a_branch' point to same
> commit, I will get clone with default branch 'master' where I would
> expect default branch 'a_branch'.

Yes, this is a known issue. The git protocol does not transfer the contents of the symref; the client must guess the branch name from the set of refs that are advertised. This has been discussed before, and there were even some patches proposed, but I think nobody cared enough to push it through, as it requires an extension to the protocol.

You can search the list archives for past discussions.

Show 7 quoted lines

> I did few more checks and it seems to me that:
> 
> * when active branch is 'master' then default branch in clone is
> always master as expected
> * when active branch is different from 'master', then the default
> branch in clone is a first branch in alfabetically sorted list of
> branches that point to same commit as active branch

Exactly. The relevant code is in remote.c:guess_remote_head.

-Peff