Re: Local clone checks out wrong branch based on remote HEAD

[Michael J Gruber <git@drmicha.warpmail.net>]

Jeff King venit, vidit, dixit 18.03.2009 01:54:
> On Tue, Mar 17, 2009 at 12:19:35PM -0700, Tom Preston-Werner wrote:
> 
>> After cloning this with a standard `git clone`, the refs are:
>>
>> [11:48][tom@solid:~/dev/sandbox/site(release)]$ git branch -r -v
>>   origin/HEAD    a52528a Fixed some routing problems
>>   origin/release a52528a Fixed some routing problems
>>   origin/trunk   a52528a Fixed some routing problems
>>
>> And the checked out branch is 'release' instead of 'trunk' as I would expect:
> 
> As others have explained, this is because the information is lacking at
> the client and we are forced to make a guess. There is a heuristic in
> the guess to prefer "master" if it is an option. I suppose we could make
> a similar exception for "trunk", which might make sense to people
> working with SVN repositories.
> 
> OTOH, I am not sure I want to open the can of worms that is writing an
> exhaustive list of heuristics that will work for everybody. Fixing the
> protocol itself would probably be easier. :)

One might even argue that in case of ambiguities, checking out a
detached head would be most appropriate. Really, why impose creation of
certain local branches on a user at all, unless asked for? Detached
heads are natural in git! But I don't really expect positive consensus
on that one...

Michael