.git as file pointing to directory?

Sorry if this is obvious, I can't figure out what term to search for.

At gittogether there was some talk about having .git be a file, not a
folder, with contents pointing to the real .git directory.  Similar to
a symlink, but supported in Windows.  Is there a specific name for
this feature?  Where can I find more details?  Which version of git
introduced this?

Thanks!
Brad

Hi Brad,

Brad Larson wrote:

At gittogether there was some talk about having .git be a file, not a
folder, with contents pointing to the real .git directory.  Similar to
a symlink, but supported in Windows.

It is called a .git file.  See gitrepository-layout(5), v1.5.6-rc0~93^2~3
(Add platform-independent .git "symlink", 2008-02-20), and the recent
rebase not handling core.worktree thread[1].

Hope that helps,
Jonathan

[1] http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/160488/focus=160567

On Thu, Nov 4, 2010 at 1:43 PM, Jonathan Nieder [off-list ref] wrote:

Hi Brad,

Brad Larson wrote:

quoted

At gittogether there was some talk about having .git be a file, not a
folder, with contents pointing to the real .git directory.  Similar to
a symlink, but supported in Windows.

It is called a .git file.  See gitrepository-layout(5), v1.5.6-rc0~93^2~3
(Add platform-independent .git "symlink", 2008-02-20), and the recent
rebase not handling core.worktree thread[1].

Thanks so much Jonathan.  We were just listing the location of the
folder, but prepending it with "gitdir: " fixed things.

Thanks!
Brad

Hope that helps,
Jonathan

[1] http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/160488/focus=160567