What is the HEAD in git?

Question

There seems to be a difference between the last commit, the HEAD and the state of the file I can see in my directory.

What is HEAD, what can I do with it and what mi

Answer 1

HEAD pointer in Git

Git maintains a reference variable called HEAD. And we call this variable a pointer, because its purpose is to reference, or point to, a specific commit in the repository. As we make new commits the pointer is going to change or move to point to a new commit. HEAD always points to the tip of the current branch in our repository. Now, this has to do with our repository, not our staging index, or our working directory.

Another way to think of it is the last state of our repository or what was last checked out, and because it's where the repository left off or the last state, you can also say that the HEAD points to the parent of the next commit or it's where commit writing is going to take place.

I think a good metaphor to think about this is the playback and record head on a cassette tape recorder. As we start recording audio, the tape moves past the head, and it records onto it. when we press Stop the place where that record head is stopped is the place it'll start recording again when we press Record a second time.Now we can move around, we can move the head to different places, but wherever the head is positioned when we hit Record again that's where it's going to start recording.

The HEAD pointer in Git is very similar, it points at the place where we're going to start recording next. It's the place where we left off in our repository for the things that we've committed.