“git checkout ” is changing branch to “no branch”

Question

I am working on a branch in git. When I do

git checkout 

(commit id obtained from git log ), it is getting commit

Answer 1

Other answers have explained what 'detached HEAD' means. I try to answer why I want to do that. There are some cases I prefer checkout a commit than checkout a temporary branch.

1. To compile/build at some specific commit (maybe for your daily build or just to release some specific version to test team), I used to checkout a tmp branch for that, but then I need to remember to delete the tmp branch after build. So I found checkout a commit is more convenient, after the build I just checkout to the original branch.

2. To check what codes look like at that commit, maybe to debug an issue. The case is not much different from my case #1, I can also checkout a tmp branch for that but then I need to remember delete it. So I choose to checkout a commit more often.

3. This is probably just me being paranoid, so I prepare to merge another branch but I already suspect I would get some merge conflict and I want to see them first before merge. So I checkout the head commit then do the merge, see the merge result. Then I git checkout -f to switch back to my branch, using -f to discard any merge conflict. Again I found it more convenient than checkout a tmp branch.