threads / discuss / 47124

benefits of "/" in branch names other than the obvious?

Subject: benefits of "/" in branch names other than the obvious?

## tl;dr

2 messages between Nov 6, 2017 and Nov 6, 2017.

replies: 1people: 2as markdown or json

Robert P. J. Day· Nov 6, 2017, 05:36 UTC · lore
  another picky question ... are there any other benefits of
supporting slashes in branch names other than the obvious ones i know
about?
1) visually, let's you *imagine* a branch hierarchy, and
2) allows wildcarding on a full "component" basis
  are there any other benefits of the above? thank you kindly.
rday
-- 
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Robert P. J. Day                                 Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA
                        http://crashcourse.ca

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Stefan Beller· Nov 6, 2017, 17:50 UTC · re: Robert P. J. Day · lore

Re: benefits of "/" in branch names other than the obvious?

On Sun, Nov 5, 2017 at 9:36 PM, Robert P. J. Day <rpjday@crashcourse.ca> wrote:
Show 11 quoted lines
>
>   another picky question ... are there any other benefits of
> supporting slashes in branch names other than the obvious ones i know
> about?
>
> 1) visually, let's you *imagine* a branch hierarchy, and
> 2) allows wildcarding on a full "component" basis
>
>   are there any other benefits of the above? thank you kindly.
>
> rday

Currently refs are stored either in .git/packed_refs, or the refs are taken as a literal filename (refs/heads/master is found in .git/refs/heads/master).

When stored as literal files on disk there are interesting implications:
* File System speed when there are *lots* of refs
  (a lot of files in one dir vs sharding or a tree like structure)
*  Directory/conflicts in the data model:
    What if you want to have a ref foo/bar as well as foo?
    This is not possible as 'foo' must be either a directory
    or a file. This spawns occasional issues such as
https://public-inbox.org/git/20171024082409.smwsd6pla64jjlua@sigill.intra.peff.net/

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