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Add missing documentation.

Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <junkio@cox.net>
maint
Junio C Hamano 20 years ago
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129056370a
  1. 52
      Documentation/git-symbolic-ref.txt
  2. 58
      Documentation/git-update-ref.txt

52
Documentation/git-symbolic-ref.txt

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git-symbolic-ref(1)
===================

NAME
----
git-symbolic-ref - read and modify symbolic refs

SYNOPSIS
--------
'git-symbolic-ref' <name> [<ref>]

DESCRIPTION
-----------
Given one argument, reads which branch head the given symbolic
ref refers to and outputs its path, relative to the `.git/`
directory. Typically you would give `HEAD` as the <name>
argument to see on which branch your working tree is on.

Give two arguments, create or update a symbolic ref <name> to
point at the given branch <ref>.

Traditionally, `.git/HEAD` is a symlink pointing at
`refs/heads/master`. When we want to switch to another branch,
we did `ln -sf refs/heads/newbranch .git/HEAD`, and when we want
to find out which branch we are on, we did `readlink .git/HEAD`.
This was fine, and internally that is what still happens by
default, but on platforms that does not have working symlinks,
or that does not have the `readlink(1)` command, this was a bit
cumbersome. On some platforms, `ln -sf` does not even work as
advertised (horrors).

A symbolic ref can be a regular file that stores a string that
begins with `ref: refs/`. For example, your `.git/HEAD` *can*
be a regular file whose contents is `ref: refs/heads/master`.
This can be used on a filesystem that does not support symbolic
links. Instead of doing `readlink .git/HEAD`, `git-symbolic-ref
HEAD` can be used to find out which branch we are on. To point
the HEAD to `newbranch`, instead of `ln -sf refs/heads/newbranch
.git/HEAD`, `git-symbolic-ref HEAD refs/heads/newbranch` can be
used.

Currently, .git/HEAD uses a regular file symbolic ref on Cygwin,
and everywhere else it is implemented as a symlink. This can be
changed at compilation time.

Author
------
Written by Junio C Hamano <junkio@cox.net>

GIT
---
Part of the gitlink:git[7] suite

58
Documentation/git-update-ref.txt

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git-update-ref(1)
=================

NAME
----
git-update-ref - update the object name stored in a ref safely

SYNOPSIS
--------
`git-update-ref` <ref> <newvalue> [<oldvalue>]

DESCRIPTION
-----------
Given two arguments, stores the <newvalue> in the <ref>, possibly
dereferencing the symbolic refs. E.g. `git-update-ref HEAD
<newvalue>` updates the current branch head to the new object.

Given three arguments, stores the <newvalue> in the <ref>,
possibly dereferencing the symbolic refs, after verifying that
the current value of the <ref> matches <oldvalue>.
E.g. `git-update-ref refs/heads/master <newvalue> <oldvalue>`
updates the master branch head to <newvalue> only if its current
value is <oldvalue>.

It also allows a "ref" file to be a symbolic pointer to another
ref file by starting with the four-byte header sequence of
"ref:".

More importantly, it allows the update of a ref file to follow
these symbolic pointers, whether they are symlinks or these
"regular file symbolic refs". It follows *real* symlinks only
if they start with "refs/": otherwise it will just try to read
them and update them as a regular file (i.e. it will allow the
filesystem to follow them, but will overwrite such a symlink to
somewhere else with a regular filename).

In general, using

git-update-ref HEAD "$head"

should be a _lot_ safer than doing

echo "$head" > "$GIT_DIR/HEAD"

both from a symlink following standpoint *and* an error checking
standpoint. The "refs/" rule for symlinks means that symlinks
that point to "outside" the tree are safe: they'll be followed
for reading but not for writing (so we'll never write through a
ref symlink to some other tree, if you have copied a whole
archive by creating a symlink tree).

Author
------
Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>.

GIT
---
Part of the gitlink:git[7] suite
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