Head in Git
Most of the time, in our Git documentation, head refers to the top of a Git repository, called the repository's head . But the question is what exactly is head HEADin Git ?HEAD
In this article, we will learn about that Git HEAD, but before that, let’s take a quick look at what Git is and what it is used for.
Git is a handy tool for distributed control systems; it is used by developers and software engineers as well as data scientists who use Git to manage the source code development of their programs and their history to create results based on that data.
What is HEAD in Git?
When using Git, we can only check out one branch at a time, called HEADa branch. We can also call it a Activeor Currentbranch in that repository.
HEADIs a pointer to the initial point in the repository's lifecycle where the current branch is located. When we check out another branch, HEADwe point it to the currently checked out branch.
We can also say that it is considered the last checkout point in the repository, or that it will be the parent of the next commit we will make in the future. The current one HEADis used locally for each repository and is independent for each developer in the team.
HeadEach head has its name; it can be a branch name, a tag name, etc. The default in each repository is called master.
A repository is based on any number of heads. Specifically, a single head is called a 当前头.
An alias for this head is HEAD, which is always written in uppercase letters. Git always .git/HEADrecords this current branch in a file located in the Git repository at .
If we want to know what exactly this file contains, we will use the command mentioned below to view the pointer using the command below HEAD.
$ cat .git/HEAD
ref: refs/heads/master
The mentioned command shows that a masterlocal branch named is the latest current one in the repository HEAD.
- It shows us
.git/HEADthe content of . ref: refs/heads/master- It shows us a reference to the current commit branch we have checked out, pointing to the commit that was the starting point of the latest branch.
headHEADThe difference between
A _ written in lowercase headis referred to as any named head in the current repository. In contrast, an uppercase _ HEADrefers specifically to the currently active head of the repository.
git show HEADCheck the status of HEAD using
The command used to check Headthe status of is git show head. It will tell us Headthe location of . Following is the syntax to run the command in Git.
grammar:
$ git show HEAD
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