What is the use of the origin/HEAD branch?

Question

Possible Duplicate:
HEAD and ORIG_HEAD in Git

By default we see two branches in git:

origin/master origin/HEAD

I wonder, what is head used for?

The Git Community book says that it is a pointer to your current branch. Source: book.git-scm.com/1_git_directory_and_working_directory.html — 0x1F602
– 0x1F602, Commented Nov 22, 2011 at 7:36
stackoverflow.com/questions/964876/head-and-orig-head-in-git — Timofey Stolbov
– Timofey Stolbov, Commented Nov 22, 2011 at 7:37
This question shouldn't have been closed as a duplicate of HEAD and ORIG_HEAD in Git, this deals with HEAD in remotes, not a local repository. — user456814
– user456814, Commented Jun 12, 2014 at 4:47
Possible duplicate of HEAD doesn't point to the current branch?. — user456814
– user456814, Commented Jun 12, 2014 at 4:59

Noufal Ibrahim · Accepted Answer · 2011-11-22 08:29:17Z

1

HEAD is a a symbolic reference (similar to a symbolic link) that points to the branch you're on. You can get the reference it points to using git symbolic-ref HEAD. If you switch branches (e.g. git checkout branch1), HEAD will point to that. This is stored in a file in .git as .git/HEAD.

master is a local branch that you can work on. It's usually the default if you clone a repository or start a fresh one.

origin/master is the location of the master branch on the remote called origin.

answered Nov 22, 2011 at 8:29

Noufal Ibrahim

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4 Comments

user456814 Over a year ago

HEAD in a local repository does not always refer to a branch, it more specifically refers to the currently checked-out branch. You can enter a detached HEAD state where HEAD no longer refers to any branch.

Noufal Ibrahim Over a year ago

Correct. I didn't mention that because it's not that common and the OP's question suggested her lack of experience with git.

user456814 Over a year ago

It's funny though, even the documentation itself says that HEAD refers to the current branch. The documentation is wrong :/.

Noufal Ibrahim Over a year ago

That is in some ways true. Even in a detached head state, you are somewhere and that can be referred to as a head (which is what git says for branch) but yeah, you're right. Send them a pull request?

ghickman · Accepted Answer · 2014-06-12 09:01:00Z

1

It's a pointer to the current commit.

Since it represents a commit you can can use it with most of git's commands.

Examples:

Show the latest commit with it's diff:

git show HEAD

Interactively rebase to the commit before the latest:

git rebase -i HEAD^

edited Jun 12, 2014 at 9:01

answered Nov 22, 2011 at 8:17

ghickman

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2 Comments

user456814 Over a year ago

HEAD does not refer to your current branch, it refers to the currently checked-out commit. You can check-out a commit directly, which puts you in a "detached HEAD" state (detached from a branch). If you checkout HEAD~10 for example, HEAD will then refer to a commit that's 10 commits behind your previous branch.

ghickman Over a year ago

Thanks @Cupcake, I've updated my answer appropriately.

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