From a7333f9e56456055dc38fe05dad3970c8078cd4b Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Linus Torvalds Date: Sat, 23 Jul 2005 15:24:53 -0700 Subject: [PATCH] Update tutorial.txt branches/tags to use the nicer helper syntax Teach people to use "git tag " instead of writing the current HEAD by hand into the .git/refs/tags/ file. Most people probably don't really want to know about how git does things internally. --- Documentation/tutorial.txt | 52 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++------------------- 1 file changed, 31 insertions(+), 21 deletions(-) diff --git a/Documentation/tutorial.txt b/Documentation/tutorial.txt index 4a296079..ede48ebc 100644 --- a/Documentation/tutorial.txt +++ b/Documentation/tutorial.txt @@ -472,10 +472,11 @@ A "light" tag is technically nothing more than a branch, except we put it in the ".git/refs/tags/" subdirectory instead of calling it a "head". So the simplest form of tag involves nothing more than - cat .git/HEAD > .git/refs/tags/my-first-tag + git tag my-first-tag -after which point you can use this symbolic name for that particular -state. You can, for example, do +which just writes the current HEAD into the .git/refs/tags/my-first-tag +file, after which point you can then use this symbolic name for that +particular state. You can, for example, do git diff my-first-tag @@ -487,9 +488,9 @@ since you tagged it. A "signed tag" is actually a real git object, and contains not only a pointer to the state you want to tag, but also a small tag name and message, along with a PGP signature that says that yes, you really did -that tag. You create these signed tags with +that tag. You create these signed tags with the "-s" flag to "git tag": - git tag + git tag -s which will sign the current HEAD (but you can also give it another argument that specifies the thing to tag, ie you could have tagged the @@ -620,7 +621,7 @@ repository, and checked it out. --------------------- Branches in git are really nothing more than pointers into the git -object space from within the ",git/refs/" subdirectory, and as we +object space from within the ".git/refs/" subdirectory, and as we already discussed, the HEAD branch is nothing but a symlink to one of these object pointers. @@ -632,36 +633,45 @@ want (and indeed, subdirectories), but the convention is that the and nothing enforces it. To show that as an example, let's go back to the git-tutorial archive we -used earlier, and create a branch in it. You literally do that by just -creating a new SHA1 reference file, and switch to it by just making the -HEAD pointer point to it: +used earlier, and create a branch in it. You do that by simply just +saying that you want to check out a new branch: - cat .git/HEAD > .git/refs/heads/mybranch - ln -sf refs/heads/mybranch .git/HEAD + git checkout -b mybranch -and you're done. +will create a new branch based at the current HEAD position, and switch +to it. -Now, if you make the decision to start your new branch at some other -point in the history than the current HEAD, you usually also want to -actually switch the contents of your working directory to that point -when you switch the head, and "git checkout" will do that for you: -instead of switching the branch by hand with "ln -sf", you can just do +[ Side note: if you make the decision to start your new branch at some + other point in the history than the current HEAD, you can do so by + just telling "git checkout" what the base of the checkout would be. + In other words, if you have an earlier tag or branch, you'd just do - git checkout mybranch + git checkout -b mybranch earlier-branch -which will basically "jump" to the branch specified, update your working -directory to that state, and also make it become the new default HEAD. + and it would create the new branch "mybranch" at the earlier point, + and check out the state at that time. ] You can always just jump back to your original "master" branch by doing git checkout master -and if you forget which branch you happen to be on, a simple +(or any other branch-name, for that matter) and if you forget which +branch you happen to be on, a simple ls -l .git/HEAD will tell you where it's pointing. +NOTE! Sometimes you may wish to create a new branch _without_ actually +checking it out and switching to it. If so, just use the command + + git branch [startingpoint] + +which will simply _create_ the branch, but will not do anything further. +You can then later - once you decide that you want to actually develop +on that branch - switch to that branch with a regular "git checkout" +with the branchname as the argument. + Merging two branches -------------------- -- 2.11.0