Junio C Hamano <gitster@xxxxxxxxx> writes: > If you *are* setting HEAD to some ref that is outside refs/heads (or even > inside refs/heads for that matter), at that point the HEAD is *not* > detached, so no, it obviously is *not* what is happening. > > I am asking why you need to use a ref to do that, *if* it is a tentative > state while the program is running. You are probably calling a git > plumbing or Porcelain command that updates HEAD, and the reason why you > point HEAD outside refs/heads/ is beause you would want the command you > call to update one of the refs/top-bases/ ref through HEAD. I am asking > why you are not running these commands on a normal detached HEAD, and then > use update-ref (not symbolic-ref) plumbing to update the refs/top-bases/ > ref you would want to update when it is done. Ok, I did read the script (yuck). You do break out of TopGit process when a merge conflict prevents the update operation to complete and do give control back to the end user, so you can leave HEAD in a state that points at a non-branch, and you do use the fact that the HEAD is pointing at something funny as a sign that you are in the middle of conflicted merge resolution. It is just like how vanilla git uses MERGE_HEAD as the marker to signal that it is in a funny state. While I think it is a cute idea to use which funny hierarchy HEAD points at to indicate what funny/intermediate state your interrupted operation is in, and it may seem to be cleaner than using a marker file like MERGE_HEAD at first sight, I do not think it is a wise thing to do in the long run. You can only express two pieces of information (the overall "category of state" by which funny ref/ hierarchy HEAD points at, and one object name by storing it in the ref pointed at by HEAD), and if you need more (such as MERGE_MSG that stores pre-packaged log message pieces is used during a merge, in addition to MERGE_HEAD), you would need to use more than just the "cute HEAD" trick to store them *anyway*. Which means that it is a bad tradeoff to use "cute HEAD" --- it closes the possibility to detect user error to point HEAD at an incorrect place and I do not see the benefit of "cute HEAD" outweigh the downside. -- 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
