Re: [BUG] git-svn: HEAD pointing to a tag after cloning

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

Yann Dirson venit, vidit, dixit 11.05.2009 13:08:
> The following happens with git 1.6.3.  For some reason git-svn sets HEAD
> to the wrong branch.  Not sure what happens here, $self->full_url seems to
> be used for a wrong purpose somewhere in the code.
> 
> 
> (you can see a commit on the "tag" branch, which got committed at the
> wrong place because the user did not notice that HEAD was not pointing to
> the correct branch)
> 
> $ git svn clone --stdlayout svn://xxxx/at-remote test
> [....]
> Successfully followed parent
> r3287 = 08b210cf2e97caeb6d431a4a0bc594702aa9c6d2 (tags/luciole-2.0.4)
> Found possible branch point: svn://xxxx/at-remote/trunk =>
> svn://xxxx/at-remote/tags/luciole-2.0.5, 3352
> Found branch parent: (tags/luciole-2.0.5)
> ddff7cedbd1d66c836153606db1f80ad3ce6b00d
> Following parent with do_switch
> Successfully followed parent
> r3367 = 35b21f3f8e206c391f09a788ba9cb6b35f21752d (tags/luciole-2.0.5)
>         M       at-remote
> r3652 = faeb3bab02016b23a7fb7256bbabea305f599022 (tags/luciole-2.0.5)
> Checked out HEAD:
>   svn://xxxx/at-remote/tags/luciole-2.0.5 r3652
> $
> 
> 

svn allows you to commit to tags as if they were branches - indeed they
are branches just as much as svn branches are branches.

Therefore, git-svn represents svn tags as git remote branches (not
tags). After the clone is done, git-svn checks out the branch on which
the last commit was done.

So, git-svn is doing as it should, under the restrictions that svn puts
on its operations.

One may argue that master should point to trunk (for --stdlayout)
instead after git svn clone, just like master points to master after git
clone. But which one is "the correct branch"? I would claim that the
client cannot know and there should be no master (maybe a detached head
with the last commit, i.e. HEAD) but last I tried I remained a
1-person-minority ;)

Cheers,
Michael