the branch the ref is set to build on top of. Missing ref defaults
to the current branch.
-* A suffix '{caret}' to a revision parameter means the first parent of
+* A suffix '{caret}' to a revision parameter (e.g. 'HEAD{caret}') means the first parent of
that commit object. '{caret}<n>' means the <n>th parent (i.e.
'rev{caret}'
is equivalent to 'rev{caret}1'). As a special rule,
and dereference the tag recursively until a non-tag object is
found.
-* A colon, followed by a slash, followed by a text: this names
+* A colon, followed by a slash, followed by a text (e.g. `:/fix nasty bug`): this names
a commit whose commit message starts with the specified text.
This name returns the youngest matching commit which is
reachable from any ref. If the commit message starts with a
'!', you have to repeat that; the special sequence ':/!',
followed by something else than '!' is reserved for now.
-* A suffix ':' followed by a path; this names the blob or tree
+* A suffix ':' followed by a path (e.g. `HEAD:README`); this names the blob or tree
at the given path in the tree-ish object named by the part
before the colon.
+ ':path' (with an empty part before the colon, e.g. `:README`)
+ is a special case of the syntax described next: content
+ recorded in the index at the given path.
* A colon, optionally followed by a stage number (0 to 3) and a
- colon, followed by a path; this names a blob object in the
- index at the given path. Missing stage number (and the colon
- that follows it) names a stage 0 entry. During a merge, stage
+ colon, followed by a path (e.g. `:0:README`); this names a blob object in the
+ index at the given path. Missing stage number (and the colon
+ that follows it, e.g. `:README`) names a stage 0 entry. During a merge, stage
1 is the common ancestor, stage 2 is the target branch's version
(typically the current branch), and stage 3 is the version from
the branch being merged.