Re: [boost] [git] Are we free to delete old branches?

Subject: Re: [boost] [git] Are we free to delete old branches?
From: Beman Dawes (bdawes_at_[hidden])
Date: 2013-12-08 15:06:42

On Sun, Dec 8, 2013 at 7:23 AM, Daniel James <daniel_at_[hidden]> wrote:

> On 8 December 2013 12:09, John Maddock <john_at_[hidden]> wrote:
> > I notice most of my stuff is littered with old branches, most of which
> have
> > nothing to do with the library in question (or are even related to old
> CVS
> > branches).
> >
> > Are we free to delete these old branches without effecting any other lib?
> >
> > Is it a good/bad idea?  Seems to be recommended practice in Git to delete
> > branches once they're no longer needed?
>
> David Abrahams suggested creating 'hidden' refs for old branches and
> then deleting them.
>
> I just tried this in unordered:
>
> git update-ref refs/hidden/svn-branches/b2 origin/svn-branches/b2
> git push origin 'refs/hidden/*'
> git push origin :svn-branches/b2
>
> I think it worked okay - my local mirror picked up the hidden ref.
> Does this look right? It shouldn't be too hard to script.
>

I tried to read http://git-scm.com/book/en/Git-Internals-Git-References to
educate myself enough to understand what you (and Dave) are talking about,
but my eyes glazed over within a few sentences.

Could you please give a very simple sentence describing what a "hidden ref"
is and what is accomplished by creating one?

Thanks,

--Beman