On Fri, Jul 25, 2025, at 08:58, Patrick Steinhardt wrote:
> While we provide a couple of subcommands in git-reflog(1) to remove
> reflog entries, we don't provide any to write new entries. Obviously
> this is not an operation that really would be needed for many use cases
> out there, or otherwise people would have complained that such a command
> does not exist yet.
This command will allow you to write a simpler unique marker (without
having to make a marker-ref for a ref) that can be used to find back to
a specific point.
I’ve had some use for that. I used git-update-ref(1) for that because
of `-m` (as well as plumbing-for-scripting).
> diff --git a/Documentation/git-reflog.adoc
> b/Documentation/git-reflog.adoc
> index c3801b82fb6..c8389810273 100644
> --- a/Documentation/git-reflog.adoc
> +++ b/Documentation/git-reflog.adoc
> @@ -12,6 +12,7 @@ SYNOPSIS
> git reflog [show] [<log-options>] [<ref>]
> git reflog list
> git reflog exists <ref>
> +git reflog write <ref> <old-oid> <new-oid> <message>
> git reflog delete [--rewrite] [--updateref]
> [--dry-run | -n] [--verbose] <ref>@{<specifier>}...
> git reflog drop [--all [--single-worktree] | <refs>...]
> @@ -47,6 +48,12 @@ The "exists" subcommand checks whether a ref has a
> reflog. It exits
> with zero status if the reflog exists, and non-zero status if it does
> not.
>
> +The "write" subcommand writes a single entry to the reflog of a given
> +reference. This new entry is appended to the reflog and will thus become
> +the most recent entry. Both the old and new object IDs must not be
> +abbreviated and must point to existing objects. The reflog message gets
> +normalized.
> +
You have to give the full refname to this subcommand. `git reflog write
... branch <msg>` will update the reflog for the one-level ref `branch`.
But I’m used to using git-reflog(1) with a name like `branch` and it
using `refs/heads/branch` if it exists. At least that’s how the default
`git reflog show` behaves.
Which means that
git reflog write ... refs/heads/branch <msg>
git reflog branch
Will show that written reflog.
Whereas this
git reflog write ... branch <msg>
git reflog branch
Will show one entry since `branch` is the one-level ref `branch`, not
`refs/heads/branch`. Now it looks like `write` truncated the reflog and
wrote a new reflog message (if you mistakenly think that `branch` is a
branch).
It isn’t clear to me how the current doc guides me in the correct
direction here.
I tried `git reflog drop`[1] and it can deal with a branch like
`branch`. It doesn’t need to be told `refs/heads/branch`.
> The "delete" subcommand deletes single entries from the reflog, but
> not the reflog itself. Its argument must be an _exact_ entry (e.g. "`git
> reflog delete master@{2}`"). This subcommand is also typically not used
