Why is git capitalizing my branch name prefix?
git
Solution
Branches are stored as files within the `.git` directory. A single branch is a single file containing the hash to the commit object the branch points to.
So, as you maybe guess, when creating a branch `foo/bar` this will correspond to a directory with a file. So Git will create a folder `foo` with a file `bar` which then points to the commit.
This means when you add another branch `foo/baz` it will create a file `baz` and add that to the folder.
Now branch names are case insensitive for case insensitive file systems. This means that `FOO/bar` and `foo/bar` are the same. But the actual internal name is taken from the original folder and file name. So when the folder for your `bugfix` branch category is written in upper case, then the branches are recognized with an upper case `BUGFIX`.
To fix this, just go into `.git/refs/heads` and change the folder name to the way you like.
Problem
I have a really straightforward set of git commands that is resulting in some curious behavior: Show my current local branches, and see that I'm on `release/beta1`: ``` $ git branch develop master * release/beta1 ``` Create a `bugfix/somefeature` branch from `release/beta1`: ``` $ git checkout -b bugfix/somefeature Switched to a new branch 'bugfix/somefeature' ``` So far so good, right? Well, show me local branches again: ``` $ git branch BUGFIX/somefeature ``` The questions: - Why did the `bugfix` prefix of my branch get capitalized as `BUGFIX`? - Related, why is that not marked with an asterisk as my current branch? I'm using git version 1.8.1.5 via Homebrew on OS X 10.8.2, and this happens with or without my pretty tame `~/.gitconfig` in place. This happens for seemingly every `bugfix/...` branch.