Subject: Re: Q: ".git/HEAD" and ".git/refs/heads"

From: Matthieu Moy <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 02 Apr 2014 19:54:00 +0200

"Ulrich Windl" <[email-masked]> writes:

> Hi!
>
> I have a small question: After a "git gc" with last commit being "[shared 2679648]" I found this:
>> cat .git/HEAD
> ref: refs/heads/shared
>> cat .git/refs/heads/shared
> cat: .git/refs/heads/shared: No such file or directory
>
> Is this intentional?

Yes.

> commit in these files: .git/logs/HEAD .git/logs/refs/heads/shared
> .git/info/refs .git/packed-refs

Yes, they are where the refs are stored. If you have many refs in your
repository, having one file per ref is inefficient. It's more efficient
for Git to have one big read-only file. When one ref is modified, the
.git/refs/heads/$branch file is re-created, and the packed entry is
ignored.

>             if [ -d .git ]; then
>                 GIT_HEAD="$(<.git/HEAD)"
>                 GIT_BRANCH="${GIT_HEAD##*/}"
>                 GIT_HEAD="Git:$GIT_BRANCH-$(cut -c1-7 .git/${GIT_HEAD##*: })"
>             fi

Don't access the filesystem. Ask Git.

GIT_FULL_BRANCH=$(git rev-parse --symbolic-full-name HEAD)
GIT_BRANCH="${GIT_FULL_BRANCH##*/}"
GIT_HEAD="Git:$GIT_BRANCH-$(git rev-parse --short HEAD)"

(Perhaps there's a simpler way without $GIT_FULL_BRANCH)

-- 
Matthieu Moy
http://www-verimag.imag.fr/~moy/