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Nowadays, Git knows about three different kinds of refs. As defined in
gitglossary(7):
- Regular refs that start with "refs/", like "refs/heads/main".
- Pseudorefs, which live in the root directory. These must have
all-caps names and must be a file that start with an object hash.
Consequently, symbolic refs are not pseudorefs because they do not
start with an object hash.
- Special refs, of which we only have "FETCH_HEAD" and "MERGE_HEAD".
This state is extremely confusing, and I would claim that most folks
don't fully understand what is what here. The current definitions also
have several problems:
- Where does "HEAD" fit in? It's not a pseudoref because it can be
a symbolic ref. It's not a regular ref because it does not start
with "refs/". And it's not a special ref, either.
- There is a strong overlap between pseudorefs and special refs. The
pseudoref section for example mentions "MERGE_HEAD", even though it
is a special ref. Is it thus both a pseudoref and a special ref?
- Why do we even need to distinguish refs that live in the root from
other refs when they behave just like a regular ref anyway?
In other words, the current state is quite a mess and leads to wild
inconsistencies without much of a good reason.
The original reason why pseudorefs were introduced is that there are
some refs that sometimes behave like a ref, even though they aren't a
ref. And we really only have two of these nowadays, namely "MERGE_HEAD"
and "FETCH_HEAD". Those files are never written via the ref backends,
but are instead written by git-fetch(1), git-pull(1) and git-merge(1).
They contain additional metadata that highlights where a ref has been
fetched from or the list of commits that have been merged.
This original intent in fact matches the definition of special refs that
we have recently introduced in 8df4c5d205 (Documentation: add "special
refs" to the glossary, 2024-01-19). Due to the introduction of the new
reftable backend we were forced to distinguish those refs more clearly
such that we don't ever try to read or write them via the reftable
backend. In the same series, we also addressed all the other cases where
we used to write those special refs via the filesystem directly, thus
circumventing the ref backend, to instead write them via the backends.
Consequently, there are no other refs left anymore which are special.
Let's address this mess and return the pseudoref terminology back to its
original intent: a ref that sometimes behave like a ref, but which isn't
really a ref because it gets written to the filesystem directly. Or in
other words, let's redefine pseudorefs to match the current definition
of special refs. As special refs and pseudorefs are now the same per
definition, we can drop the "special refs" term again. It's not exposed
to our users and thus they wouldn't ever encounter that term anyway.
Refs that live in the root of the ref hierarchy but which are not
pseudorefs will be further defined in a subsequent commit.
Signed-off-by: Patrick Steinhardt <ps@pks.im>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Git - fast, scalable, distributed revision control system
Git is a fast, scalable, distributed revision control system with an unusually rich command set that provides both high-level operations and full access to internals.
Git is an Open Source project covered by the GNU General Public License version 2 (some parts of it are under different licenses, compatible with the GPLv2). It was originally written by Linus Torvalds with help of a group of hackers around the net.
Please read the file INSTALL for installation instructions.
Many Git online resources are accessible from https://git-scm.com/ including full documentation and Git related tools.
See Documentation/gittutorial.txt to get started, then see
Documentation/giteveryday.txt for a useful minimum set of commands, and
Documentation/git-<commandname>.txt for documentation of each command.
If git has been correctly installed, then the tutorial can also be
read with man gittutorial or git help tutorial, and the
documentation of each command with man git-<commandname> or git help <commandname>.
CVS users may also want to read Documentation/gitcvs-migration.txt
(man gitcvs-migration or git help cvs-migration if git is
installed).
The user discussion and development of Git take place on the Git mailing list -- everyone is welcome to post bug reports, feature requests, comments and patches to git@vger.kernel.org (read Documentation/SubmittingPatches for instructions on patch submission and Documentation/CodingGuidelines).
Those wishing to help with error message, usage and informational message
string translations (localization l10) should see po/README.md
(a po file is a Portable Object file that holds the translations).
To subscribe to the list, send an email to git+subscribe@vger.kernel.org (see https://subspace.kernel.org/subscribing.html for details). The mailing list archives are available at https://lore.kernel.org/git/, https://marc.info/?l=git and other archival sites.
Issues which are security relevant should be disclosed privately to the Git Security mailing list git-security@googlegroups.com.
The maintainer frequently sends the "What's cooking" reports that list the current status of various development topics to the mailing list. The discussion following them give a good reference for project status, development direction and remaining tasks.
The name "git" was given by Linus Torvalds when he wrote the very first version. He described the tool as "the stupid content tracker" and the name as (depending on your mood):
- random three-letter combination that is pronounceable, and not actually used by any common UNIX command. The fact that it is a mispronunciation of "get" may or may not be relevant.
- stupid. contemptible and despicable. simple. Take your pick from the dictionary of slang.
- "global information tracker": you're in a good mood, and it actually works for you. Angels sing, and a light suddenly fills the room.
- "goddamn idiotic truckload of sh*t": when it breaks