Question about bare repositories

Question about bare repositories

[Andy Parkins]

Hello,

I'm having an understanding problem, rather than a git problem.  It came about 
because I was looking at a repository using gitweb.  The repository was bare, 
and happened to have HEAD pointing at an old branch that hadn't been updated 
for a long time.  I was confused because I wasn't seeing new commits.  Once I 
set HEAD to master in the bare repository, gitweb showed the new commits.

All that led me to this question, which isn't a criticism, but has exposed a 
hole in my understanding of git.

Why does a bare repository have/need a HEAD?



Andy
-- 
Dr Andy Parkins, M Eng (hons), MIET
andyparkins@gmail.com

Re: Question about bare repositories

[Junio C Hamano]

Andy Parkins <andyparkins@gmail.com> writes:

> Why does a bare repository have/need a HEAD?

To mark which branch the repository owner considers the primary
branch of the repository.  I think "git pull $URL" (i.e. without
using shorthand arranged in the config nor $GIT_DIR/remotes/)
defaults to fetching and merging HEAD from there, for example (I
say "I think" because it's been a while I did so myself, and we
might have broken it during the 1.5.0 process, which had a lot
of work in that area).

Re: Question about bare repositories

[Andy Parkins]

On Friday 2007 March 16 10:05, Junio C Hamano wrote:
> Andy Parkins <andyparkins@gmail.com> writes:
> > Why does a bare repository have/need a HEAD?
>
> To mark which branch the repository owner considers the primary
> branch of the repository.  I think "git pull $URL" (i.e. without

Interesting.   So it's got a much reduced importance and sounds like it is 
mainly as guidance for cloners, etc.

> using shorthand arranged in the config nor $GIT_DIR/remotes/)
> defaults to fetching and merging HEAD from there, for example (I
> say "I think" because it's been a while I did so myself, and we
> might have broken it during the 1.5.0 process, which had a lot
> of work in that area).

Me too; I don't think I've ever used it, which is where my confusion came 
from.

Thanks for the help.


Andy
-- 
Dr Andy Parkins, M Eng (hons), MIET
andyparkins@gmail.com

Re: Question about bare repositories

[Johannes Schindelin]

Hi,

On Fri, 16 Mar 2007, Andy Parkins wrote:

> On Friday 2007 March 16 10:05, Junio C Hamano wrote:
> > Andy Parkins <andyparkins@gmail.com> writes:
> > > Why does a bare repository have/need a HEAD?
> >
> > To mark which branch the repository owner considers the primary
> > branch of the repository.  I think "git pull $URL" (i.e. without
> 
> Interesting.  So it's got a much reduced importance and sounds like it 
> is mainly as guidance for cloners, etc.

It's as much a guidance for cloners, as it is for Git in non-bare repos to 
know which branch gets updated upon commit.

HEAD was never more than a pointer to one (the "current") branch.

Ciao,
Dscho