Re: Git terminology: remote, add, track, stage, etc.

On Tue, 19 Oct 2010, Thore Husfeldt wrote:

Also, in the user-manual.txt:

quoted

Examining branches from a remote repository
-------------------------------------------

The "master" branch that was created at the time you cloned is a copy
of the HEAD in the repository that you cloned from.  That repository
may also have had other branches, though, and your local repository
keeps branches that track each of those remote branches, which you
can view using the "-r" option to linkgit:git-branch[1]:

------------------------------------------------
$ git branch -r
  origin/HEAD
  origin/html
  origin/maint
  origin/man
  origin/master
  origin/next
  origin/pu
  origin/todo
------------------------------------------------

You cannot check out these remote-tracking branches, but you can
examine them on a branch of your own, just as you would a tag:

That’s just wrong, isn’t it? You absolutely can check out a remote-tracking branch.--

Yes, the above is wrong.  But to check out a remote-tracking branch, or 
a tag, or a random commit through its SHA1, we do rely on the concept of 
a "detached head".  That term and concept has caused newbies grief in 
the past as well, despite the fact that seasoned Git users are perfectly 
fine with it.

A detached head is HEAD not being linked to any branch.  This is done 
because tags and remote-tracking branches are not meant to be altered by 
local changes.  Hence committing stuff on top of a detached head will 
advance HEAD, but no actual branch is keeping a record of it.


Nicolas