Re: [BUG] Git clone of a bundle fails, but works (somewhat) when run with strace

Jeff King <peff <at> peff.net> writes:

[..]
Secondly, I do get the same warning about HEAD:

  $ git clone repo.bundle repofrombundle
  Cloning into 'repofrombundle'...
  Receiving objects: 100% (3/3), done.
  warning: remote HEAD refers to nonexistent ref, unable to checkout.

but that warning makes sense. You did not create a bundle that contains
HEAD, therefore when we clone it, we do not know what to point HEAD to.
You probably wanted "git bundle create ../repo.bundle --all" which
includes both "master" and "HEAD".

I'd like to revive this discussion and submit a patch, as I just spent
significant time wondering why git clone failed. It's been a while, so I'll
summarize: when you make a git bundle without including HEAD explicitly,
then clone from that bundle, Git throws a warning and leaves you with a
broken HEAD.

I do not agree that the warning makes sense. It implies that HEAD exists but
is invalid. In reality, no ref is referred to by HEAD in the first place.
Furthermore, .git/HEAD in the clone is "autocorrected" to be
refs/heads/master, so the error message is even more misleading.

It's like saying "Our CEO's guitar is actually an air guitar", then
explaining where he stores his guitar, when I don't work in a company in the
first place.

It would be slightly more accurate to say "the remote HEAD does not
exist", rather than "refers to nonexistent ref".  It would perhaps be
nicer still for "git clone" to make a guess about the correct HEAD when
one is not present (especially in the single-branch case, it is easy to
make the right guess).

Seems sensible at first sight, though it seems orthogonal to the warning
message.

Patches welcome. In the meantime, you can clone with "-b master" to tell
it explicitly, or you can "git checkout master" inside the newly-cloned
repository.

Alright :) See below.

Cheers, Bram

From bc799b12b659d7ab20df7fe420d5f1f1c90450aa Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001

From: Bram Geron <redacted>
Date: Wed, 28 May 2014 15:54:37 +0100
Subject: [PATCH] Clearer error message when cloning a bundle without a HEAD
 ref.

---
 builtin/clone.c | 2 +-
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/builtin/clone.c b/builtin/clone.c
index 9b3c04d..e3c1447 100644
--- a/builtin/clone.c
+++ b/builtin/clone.c

@@ -623,7 +623,7 @@ static int checkout(void)
 
 	head = resolve_refdup("HEAD", sha1, 1, NULL);
 	if (!head) {
-		warning(_("remote HEAD refers to nonexistent ref, "
+		warning(_("no HEAD in remote or HEAD refers to nonexistent ref, "
 			  "unable to checkout.\n"));
 		return 0;
 	}

-- 
1.9.1