Re: Re* [RFC/PATCH] extend meaning of "--root" option to index comparisons

[Jeff King <peff@peff.net>]

On Sun, Sep 21, 2008 at 08:58:30AM -0700, Anatol Pomozov wrote:

> revision is broken (like we have a junk in the HEAD file) from the
> case when "branch is not created yet" (which is part of normal
> workflow).
> 
> What about following algorithm. HEAD points to ref and ref is not
> created yet. Additional check could be
>  a) there are no other refs
>  or/and b) object database is empty

I don't think those things have to do with "branch not created yet".
They are about "repository has no branches".

The only thing that indicates you a branch has not been created is the
absence of that ref. So you really have two situations there:

  1. a symref like HEAD points to a branch that does not exist

  2. the user inputs a ref-name that does not exist

In the former, that means we are on a branch that hasn't been created
yet (which generally does mean a new repo, but it's possible to reach
this state in other ways). Or it means somebody made a mistake when they
updated the symref.

In the latter, it _could_ mean that we are interested in a branch yet to
be born, but in general we consider it to mean the user made a typo.

-Peff