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From: Kyle Meyer <kyle@kyleam.com>
To: git@vger.kernel.org
Subject: What's the ".git/gitdir" file?
Date: Tue, 27 Oct 2015 18:04:46 -0400	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <87a8r4ary9.fsf@kyleam.com> (raw)

Hello,

When a ".git" file points to another repo, a ".git/gitdir" file is
created in that repo.

For example, running

    $ mkdir repo-a repo-b
    $ cd repo-a
    $ git init
    $ cd ../repo-b
    $ echo "gitdir: ../repo-a/.git" > .git
    $ git status

results in a file "repo-a/.git/gitdir" that contains

    $ cat repo-a/.git/gitdir
    .git

I don't see this file mentioned in the gitrepository-layout manpage,
and my searches haven't turned up any information on it.  What's the
purpose of ".git/gitdir"?  Are there cases where it will contain
something other than ".git"?

Thanks.

--
Kyle
git version 2.6.1

             reply	other threads:[~2015-10-27 22:04 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 18+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2015-10-27 22:04 Kyle Meyer [this message]
2015-10-27 22:22 ` What's the ".git/gitdir" file? Stefan Beller
2015-10-27 22:42   ` Randall S. Becker
2015-10-27 22:54     ` Stefan Beller
2015-10-27 22:54 ` Junio C Hamano
2015-10-27 23:26   ` Mike Rappazzo
2015-10-28 16:23     ` Junio C Hamano
2015-11-02 19:08       ` [PATCH] setup: do not create $X/gitdir unnecessarily when accessing git file $X Nguyễn Thái Ngọc Duy
2015-11-02 20:01         ` Eric Sunshine
2015-11-02 20:35         ` Jeff King
2015-11-02 20:51           ` Junio C Hamano
2015-11-02 20:52             ` Jeff King
2015-11-03  5:48             ` Duy Nguyen
2015-11-03 19:54               ` Junio C Hamano
2015-12-27  3:43                 ` [PATCH] worktree: stop supporting moving worktrees manually Nguyễn Thái Ngọc Duy
2015-12-28  6:22                   ` Eric Sunshine
2015-12-29 13:55                     ` Duy Nguyen
2015-12-31  5:59                       ` Eric Sunshine

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