Deleting branch with repo abandon and git branch -D

Question

I am using git and git-repo for my project. I see when I try to delete my local branch which I am currently on using git command

git branch -D branch_name

It shows me error which I am expecting, as we can't delete current branch.

But if I use repo command

repo abandon branch_name

I am able to delete the current branch. So my question is what command is repo using internally to delete the branch?

If anyone is interested in doing research on this, you can find the source code for the `abandon` command at https://gerrit.googlesource.com/git-repo/+/master/subcmds/abandon.py — , May 23 '13 at 05:48

score 4 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:00

The abandon.py subcmd calls project.AbandonBranch, which includes:

head = self.work_git.GetHead()
if head == rev:
  # We can't destroy the branch while we are sitting
  # on it.  Switch to a detached HEAD.
  #
  head = all_refs[head]

  revid = self.GetRevisionId(all_refs)
  if head == revid:
    _lwrite(os.path.join(self.worktree, '.git', HEAD),
            '%s\n' % revid)
  else:
    self._Checkout(revid, quiet=True)

In other words, it makes sure to not be on the branch you are deleting, even if that mean setting up a detached HEAD (by a checkout of a SHA1 'revid').

Deleting branch with repo abandon and git branch -D

1 Answers1