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by packetlost 58 days ago
Is HEAD not just a ref to a commit? There's basically only two "things" in git, refs and objects. Git internals are so easy that IMO people should start off by running through this tutorial [0] instead of learning the basics of git porcelain, it makes understanding what's going on so much easier.

[0]: https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Git-Internals-Git-Objects
2 comments
WorldMaker 58 days ago
HEAD in most operations is usually a ref to a branch, which makes it somewhat unique as a ref type (it's a ref to a ref, double pointer). When it is a ref to a commit, that's a detached HEAD state.

Plus HEAD to the CLI can also mean the family of refs under refs/heads/* that relate to the HEADS of each branch (which depending on fetch status may not be the same as the branch ref) and traversal into the reflog.

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skydhash 58 days ago
Objects should be split into trees and blobs to make some operations clearer, especially checkout and rename detections.
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packetlost 58 days ago
There's also commits and tags. Commits are important for understanding how branches and histories work. I was just trying to be brief, the types of objects are important and covered in that tutorial.
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