Question

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git push error '[remote rejected] master -> master (branch is currently checked out)'

I am new to Git and trying to use it for a local grails project.
The steps I followed:

1. create the grails project
2. go to the project directory and git init
3. Add all the files in the project in staging area and commit.

4. The git status at the repo gives the below message

   BXX@BXX-PC /c/Work/Grails/projects/yyy/tables (master)
   $ git status
   # On branch master
   nothing to commit (working directory clean)
   

5. Trying to keep it as the master branch, make the changes by cloning the repo, and later push the changes back. For that

6. In my IDE, checkout the project (IntelliJ).This actually clone the project to another dir.
7. Make the changes and commit the project

8. Push the local changes to master.

   15:41:56.249: git push -v origin master
   Pushing to c:/Work/Grails/projects/xxx/tables
   remote: error: refusing to update checked out branch: refs/heads/master        
   remote: error: By default, updating the current branch in a non-bare repository        
   remote: error: is denied, because it will make the index and work tree inconsistent        
   remote: error: with what you pushed, and will require 'git reset --hard' to match        
   remote: error: the work tree to HEAD. 
   

The cloned repo status is

$ git status
# On branch master
# Your branch is ahead of 'origin/master' by 1 commit.
#
nothing to commit (working directory clean)

Please help me with understanding this. Is there a better workflow to follow. I may be able to initialize the repo through Intellij, and try to work on the main branch. Still not sure what is wrong above.

thank you.

Answer 1

First of all, you do not need to clone your local repository. You can use branches to divide development in the same repository.

Git is a Distributed VCS, and if you have experience with Subversion or CVS before it, you need to change your mind.

Git is a very agile and you can use different workflows with it. Cloning repositories is more needed for a team work, not for local development (IMHO).

Branches is a good alternative for you.

See. Let’s set master branch of your repository for a production-ready code. Let’s create another branch for development:

$ git checkout -b development master

Now you are working on the development branch.

You could use different branches for each feature you want to develop. It’s very easy and helpful.

Let’s imagine you want to implement some new feature, you need to create a new branch:

$ git checkout -b newfeature development

Now you can work with your code, add files, commit and so on.

Next you need to merge your new developed feature to the development branch:

$ git add .
$ git commit -m "My last changes for the new feature"
$ git checkout development
$ git merge newfeature

Now your new code from the newfeature branch merged into the development branch.

For sometime in the future when you decide that your code in the development branch get some milestone, you could merge all the changes from development to master branch.

It’s a very basic workflow, it can be helpful for the many branches.

My advise for you now: read more about git, branching, stashing (very-very-very helpful for quick fixes). And after some time you will get a great effort from using git.

Good luck.