Re: [PATCH 5/9] Documentation: clone: clarify discussion of initial branch

[Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>]

Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com> writes:

> When saying the initial branch is equal to the currently active
> remote branch, it is probably intended that the branch heads
> point to the same commit.  Maybe it would be more useful to a new
> user to emphasize that the tree contents and history are the
> same.
>
> More important, probably, is that this new branch is set up so
> that "git pull" merges changes from the corresponding remote
> branch.

All true, and "with the contents of" is dropping the "history" part.
Perhaps

    ... creates and checks out an initial branch that is forked from the
    cloned repository's currently active branch.

would convey that (1) the initial branch is your own; if you do not pull,
you won't get updated, and that (2) the initial branch starts out at the
same commit as the upstream.

> clarifying the initial content of the branch should make it
> clearer why a pull is required at all (that local and remote
> branches each have their own history after the clone).
>
> Signed-off-by: Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>
> ---
>  Documentation/git-clone.txt |    3 ++-
>  1 files changed, 2 insertions(+), 1 deletions(-)
>
> diff --git a/Documentation/git-clone.txt b/Documentation/git-clone.txt
> index aacf4fd..7cd06e2 100644
> --- a/Documentation/git-clone.txt
> +++ b/Documentation/git-clone.txt
> @@ -20,7 +20,8 @@ DESCRIPTION
>  Clones a repository into a newly created directory, creates
>  remote-tracking branches for each branch in the cloned repository
>  (visible using `git branch -r`), and creates and checks out an initial
> -branch equal to the cloned repository's currently active branch.
> +branch with the contents of the cloned repository's currently active
> +branch.
>  
>  After the clone, a plain `git fetch` without arguments will update
>  all the remote-tracking branches, and a `git pull` without
> -- 
> 1.6.5.rc1.199.g596ec
>
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