Subject: Re: [Non-Bug] cloning a repository with a default MASTER branch tries to check out the master branch

From: Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 23 May 2017 12:40:36 +0900

Félix Saparelli <[email-masked]> writes:

> I created a git repository that, for joke reasons, has a single branch
> called MASTER (in uppercase). Upon cloning this repo, git attempts to
> checkout the master branch (in lowercase), which does not exist.

See what Git told you carefully and you can guess, I think.

> $ git clone [email-masked]:passcod/UPPERCASE-NPM.git
> Cloning into 'UPPERCASE-NPM'...
> remote: Counting objects: 14, done.
> remote: Compressing objects: 100% (11/11), done.
> remote: Total 14 (delta 3), reused 14 (delta 3), pack-reused 0
> Receiving objects: 100% (14/14), done.
> Resolving deltas: 100% (3/3), done.
> warning: remote HEAD refers to nonexistent ref, unable to checkout.

So you have MASTER but not master, but your HEAD still is pointing
at non-existing master.  As HEAD is the way the remote tells the
clone what the default branch to be checked out is, the command
reports "we cannot do a checkout of the default branch."