On Sat, Aug 04, 2007 at 12:55:43PM +0200, David Kastrup wrote: > A local branch is one with a local branch head. In contrast, checking > out a remote branch, while possible, leaves one with a detached head. Yes, if by "remote branch" you mean a "remote tracking branch". > "remote-tracking" basically means that git-pull will update the branch > according to changes in the remote repository. A "remote tracking branch" is a branch in refs/remotes/* that is updated by _git-fetch_ (which is in turn called by git-pull) to track a remote's position of a branch. A local branch which tracks a remote branch (I don't recall seeing the phrase "remote-tracking" -- where did this come from?) has the correct magic in .git/config to pull from a specific remote branch when 'git-pull' is given without arguments. > Creating a branch using git-branch or git-checkout will always create > a local branch which may or may not be remote-tracking according to > the --no-track or --track options. Yes, although again, I think calling it a "remote-tracking branch" to mean "a local branch that tracks a remote branch" is confusingly similar to the more common "remote tracking branch" to mean "a branch in refs/remotes that track's a remote repository's idea of a branch". > So there are basically three types of branches in a repository that I > can see: > > local branch, not remote-tracking > local branch, remote-tracking > remote branch, remote-tracking No, the remote branch is not remote-tracking in the sense that you defined above; it is not meant to be pulled into. I think you are confused by two uses of the word "track". In one case, we mean that git-fetch will remember the remote's idea of a branch in refs/remotes/<remote>/<branch>. In another, we mean that a local branch will default to pulling from a particular (remote,branch) combination. > So the terminology seems fuzzy at the moment, and my attempt to clear > it up might not be the preferred way of doing it. Yes, it is very fuzzy. Using "track" for the concept of a local branch defaulting to a particular (remote,branch) pair for git-pull is, I think, more recent and less used. If there were another term for this, it might be more clear. -Peff - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
