How to delete a branch that ends in a period

Question

Somehow one of my coworkers was able to create a branch ending with a period. I'm not sure how he did it. It's now causing issues when working with his remote.

The bad branch is: 'bugfix_ESP-924-invalid-email-error-message.'

When I do a git fetch taylor it just hangs.

When I list the branches the period is invisible

git branch -r | grep 924
taylor/bugfix_ESP-924-invalid-email-error-message

If I try to delete the branch without the period, I get a 404 (makes sense)

git push origin :taylor/bugfix_ESP-924-invalid-email-error-message
error: unable to delete 'taylor/bugfix_ESP-924-invalid-email-error-message': remote ref does not exist

If I try to delete the true branch name I get a 'invalid branch name'

git push origin :taylor/bugfix_ESP-924-invalid-email-error-message.
fatal: remote part of refspec is not a valid name in :taylor/bugfix_ESP-924-invalid-email-error-message.

Any suggestions?

I'm surprised that git has problems with branch names ending with `'.'` -- but apparently it does. I wonder why. — Keith Thompson, May 28 '15 at 17:33
Looks like you (or he) will have to fix this directly on his side: obviously the fetch stripped the trailing period and push won't let you specify it. — torek, May 28 '15 at 18:46
where is the branch? how about: - creating a new bare repository. - fetch all remotes except the one with the illegal branch name. -replace the repositories manually. — Alexander Oh, Jun 02 '15 at 23:02

score 1 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 04 '15 at 00:17

1

A branch is just a link to a commit. It's stored in .git/refs/heads/branchname. If you can access remote directly, just delete the file. But please make a backup before. Two backups are even better :)

edited Jun 04 '15 at 00:17

albert

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answered Jun 04 '15 at 00:12

Nick Volynkin

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I can delete it locally but how do I push that to the upstream server? – jwieland Jun 04 '15 at 04:14
I meant connecting to the `taylor` by SSH. – Nick Volynkin Jun 04 '15 at 05:16

How to delete a branch that ends in a period

1 Answers1