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git.txt: HEAD is not that special

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The introductory text in "git help git" that describes HEAD called
it "a special ref".  It is special compared to the more regular refs
like refs/heads/master and refs/tags/v1.0.0, but not that special,
unlike truly special ones like FETCH_HEAD.

Rewrite a few sentences to also introduce the distinction between a
regular ref that contain the object name and a symbolic ref that
contain the name of another ref.  Update the description of HEAD
that point at the current branch to use the more correct term, a
"symbolic ref".

This was found as part of auditing the documentation and in-code
comments for uses of "special ref" that refer merely a "pseudo ref".

Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
This commit is contained in:
Junio C Hamano
2023-12-15 12:32:41 -08:00
parent 564d0252ca
commit d9a4bb3385
1 changed files with 4 additions and 3 deletions
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Documentation/git.txt
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@ -1025,10 +1025,11 @@ When first created, objects are stored in individual files, but for
efficiency may later be compressed together into "pack files".
Named pointers called refs mark interesting points in history. A ref
may contain the SHA-1 name of an object or the name of another ref. Refs
with names beginning `ref/head/` contain the SHA-1 name of the most
may contain the SHA-1 name of an object or the name of another ref (the
latter is called a "symbolic ref").
Refs with names beginning `refs/head/` contain the SHA-1 name of the most
recent commit (or "head") of a branch under development. SHA-1 names of
tags of interest are stored under `ref/tags/`. A special ref named
tags of interest are stored under `refs/tags/`. A symbolic ref named
`HEAD` contains the name of the currently checked-out branch.
The index file is initialized with a list of all paths and, for each