From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Shawn Pearce Subject: Re: Marking abandoned branches Date: Wed, 13 Sep 2006 13:32:12 -0400 Message-ID: <20060913173212.GD29933@spearce.org> References: <9e4733910609130817r39bbf8a8x2e05461816d9d2a1@mail.gmail.com> <20060913152451.GH23891@pasky.or.cz> <9e4733910609130859v347a7a9ew5c3ebc982bf9b07b@mail.gmail.com> <9e4733910609131022y19327efy541ac451bdf4b009@mail.gmail.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Cc: Johannes Schindelin , Petr Baudis , Git Mailing List X-From: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Wed Sep 13 19:32:47 2006 Return-path: Envelope-to: gcvg-git@gmane.org Received: from vger.kernel.org ([209.132.176.167]) by ciao.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1GNYb0-0003Mx-5L for gcvg-git@gmane.org; Wed, 13 Sep 2006 19:32:25 +0200 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1750832AbWIMRcT (ORCPT ); Wed, 13 Sep 2006 13:32:19 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1750833AbWIMRcT (ORCPT ); Wed, 13 Sep 2006 13:32:19 -0400 Received: from corvette.plexpod.net ([64.38.20.226]:39361 "EHLO corvette.plexpod.net") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1750832AbWIMRcS (ORCPT ); Wed, 13 Sep 2006 13:32:18 -0400 Received: from cpe-74-70-48-173.nycap.res.rr.com ([74.70.48.173] helo=asimov.home.spearce.org) by corvette.plexpod.net with esmtpa (Exim 4.52) id 1GNYam-0006SQ-9z; Wed, 13 Sep 2006 13:32:08 -0400 Received: by asimov.home.spearce.org (Postfix, from userid 1000) id 8ECC920E49A; Wed, 13 Sep 2006 13:32:12 -0400 (EDT) To: Jon Smirl Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <9e4733910609131022y19327efy541ac451bdf4b009@mail.gmail.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.11 X-AntiAbuse: This header was added to track abuse, please include it with any abuse report X-AntiAbuse: Primary Hostname - corvette.plexpod.net X-AntiAbuse: Original Domain - vger.kernel.org X-AntiAbuse: Originator/Caller UID/GID - [0 0] / [47 12] X-AntiAbuse: Sender Address Domain - spearce.org X-Source: X-Source-Args: X-Source-Dir: Sender: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Precedence: bulk X-Mailing-List: git@vger.kernel.org Archived-At: Jon Smirl wrote: > On 9/13/06, Johannes Schindelin wrote: > >Hi, > > > >On Wed, 13 Sep 2006, Jon Smirl wrote: > > > >> Moving the refs into refs/abandoned would work too. We would need new > >> git commands to do this and flags on the visualization tools to > >> include the abandoned branches. On the other hand doing this is > >> recording state about the repository in the refs directory instead of > >> writing this state into the repo itself. > > > >Well, the refs directory is _part_ of the repository. Think about it, if > >you do not know which branches are in the object database, you lack a lot > >of information. > > If you delete all of your heads you can recover them by following all > of the chains in the repo to find them. Doing this would recover the > abandoned branches too but it would mix them up with the active heads. > This is not a big deal but it is info that is getting stored outside > of the object db. No. Being able to get a ref back like that is like saying that I can get files back in ext2 by deleting them then running fsck and restoring the lost inodes to '/lost+found'. Sure the data is there but there's no way to tell which file is which! The name of a ref, like the name of a file, is pretty important when it comes to describing it. Just having the SHA1 ID of 100 commits is pretty useless; it could take weeks to determine which branch head is which. The refs database is an important part of the usability of a Git repository. -- Shawn.