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Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/git-update-ref.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/git-update-ref.txt | 48 |
1 files changed, 21 insertions, 27 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/git-update-ref.txt b/Documentation/git-update-ref.txt index afcf33cf60..8a4281cde9 100644 --- a/Documentation/git-update-ref.txt +++ b/Documentation/git-update-ref.txt @@ -25,37 +25,16 @@ value is <old-oid>. You can specify 40 "0" or an empty string as <old-oid> to make sure that the ref you are creating does not exist. -It also allows a "ref" file to be a symbolic pointer to another -ref file by starting with the four-byte header sequence of -"ref:". - -More importantly, it allows the update of a ref file to follow -these symbolic pointers, whether they are symlinks or these -"regular file symbolic refs". It follows *real* symlinks only -if they start with "refs/": otherwise it will just try to read -them and update them as a regular file (i.e. it will allow the -filesystem to follow them, but will overwrite such a symlink to -somewhere else with a regular filename). +The final arguments are object names; this command without any options +does not support updating a symbolic ref to point to another ref (see +linkgit:git-symbolic-ref[1]). But `git update-ref --stdin` does have +the `symref-*` commands so that regular refs and symbolic refs can be +committed in the same transaction. If --no-deref is given, <ref> itself is overwritten, rather than the result of following the symbolic pointers. -In general, using - - git update-ref HEAD "$head" - -should be a _lot_ safer than doing - - echo "$head" > "$GIT_DIR/HEAD" - -both from a symlink following standpoint *and* an error checking -standpoint. The "refs/" rule for symlinks means that symlinks -that point to "outside" the tree are safe: they'll be followed -for reading but not for writing (so we'll never write through a -ref symlink to some other tree, if you have copied a whole -archive by creating a symlink tree). - -With `-d` flag, it deletes the named <ref> after verifying it +With `-d`, it deletes the named <ref> after verifying that it still contains <old-oid>. With `--stdin`, update-ref reads instructions from standard input and @@ -200,6 +179,21 @@ An update will fail (without changing <ref>) if the current user is unable to create a new log file, append to the existing log file or does not have committer information available. +NOTES +----- + +Symbolic refs were initially implemented using symbolic links. This is +now deprecated since not all filesystems support symbolic links. + +This command follows *real* symlinks only if they start with "refs/": +otherwise it will just try to read them and update them as a regular +file (i.e. it will allow the filesystem to follow them, but will +overwrite such a symlink to somewhere else with a regular filename). + +SEE ALSO +-------- +linkgit:git-symbolic-ref[1] + GIT --- Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite |