Subject: Re: [PATCH 6/6] breaking-changes: switch default branch to main

From: Patrick Steinhardt <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 4 Sep 2025 09:09:52 +0200

On Wed, Sep 03, 2025 at 11:40:05AM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote:
> Phillip Wood <[email-masked]> writes:
> 
> > When the variable was introduced in 704fed9ea22 (tests: start moving
> > to a different default main branch name, 2020-10-23) it was described
> > as "This `GIT_TEST_*` variable is meant purely for the transitional
> > period while the entire test suite is converted to use `main` as the
> > initial branch name by default." The way it has been used is to allow
> > tests to continue to hard code a fixed name for the default initial
> > branch.
> 
> Yes, but ripping it out would mean that you make it much harder to
> transition out of 'main' and move to the next correct name when the
> need comes, wouldn't it?

I guess it depends. If we transition our tests towards becoming mostly
agnostic of the default branch name then we can strip out the whole
infra but still remain agile.

> > ... like to keep the patches that switch the tests from using
> > "master" to "main".
> 
> I have no problem with that.  I am still unsure about that "reftable
> cares about the name being 'master'" thing.  If that can live with
> any 6 byte name, we may want to fix it to something different from
> 'master', for the sake of removing 'master'.  Perhaps 'banana' or
> something?

Huh, did I miss anything? I scanned the thread for reftables but
couldn't find any discussion around it relying on a 6 byte name. Could
you maybe provide a pointer to what you are referring to?

Thanks!

Patrick