version control - Is it possible to alias a branch in Git?

Question

I am looking into using Git on a massive scale. I was hoping to increase adoption and make things easier by calling the master branch trunk.

This can and will give SVN users some feelings of comfort. I know I can create a branch called trunk, but that seems to deviate from the Git norms and might cause some users to get confused.

I know that I can also create and delete tags to my heart's content but when I checkout those tags it tells me it is a non local branch which is just fine with me but probably not what I want to be doing.

I am a total Git newb but a seasoned professional at release and build systems.

What I want to do is to be able to call master trunk. I have seen the ability to alias commands – does this apply for the names of versioned objects as well?

I know git-svn exists and other tools but the overhead of layered repository systems frightens me.

Answer 1

You can rename the master branch trunk as Greg has suggested, or you can also create a trunk that is a symbolic reference to the master branch so that both git and svn users have the 'main' branch that they are used to.

git symbolic-ref refs/heads/trunk refs/heads/master

Note that trunk isn't a first class citizen. If you checkout trunk and perform a git status you will actually be on master, however you can use the trunk command in all places that you use the branch name (log, merge, etc.).