Chad - that's totally bizarre... based on the tutorials and cheat sheet I have, you remove a branch form a repo with the following:
`git branch -d $branch` There is a pretty active git channel on irc.freenode.org - I asked about this and here's the explanation I got. `git push` is the only command that can make changes to a remote repository. It creates and updates branches - and it has been overloaded to delete branches (since it's the only outgoing communication command). Apparently the key to that github link is the colon. If you know that `git push origin foo` is really shorthand for `git push origin foo:foo` (because usually the local branch and remote branch have the same name). So when you say: git push origin :somebranch You're pushing nothing to somebranch. Below is the transcipt of the answer I got from spearce: [21:43] <lenards> question - how do you remove a remote branch? Is this github link wrong: http://github.com/guides/remove-a-remote-branch [21:43] <spearce> lenards: that link is actually correct [21:45] <lenards> spearce: I don't understand why it works... why would `git push` be how you remove a remote branch? [21:45] <spearce> lenards: git push is the only command that can make changes to a remote repository. it can create branches, update branches, and it was overloaded to delete branches, since its the only outgoing communication command. [21:47] <lenards> spearce: thank you... okay - but the syntax shown looks like the same way I'd push changes to that remote branch [21:49] <spearce> lenards: if you look carefully at the syntax the source side of the argument is empty (the stuff before the :). we are technically pushing _nothing_ to the remote branch to cause its deletion. [21:51] <lenards> spearce: hmmm... okay so if I was pushing to a remote branch to update it... how would it look? `git push origin localbranch:remotebranch` ? [21:51] <spearce> lenards: correct [21:51] <spearce> and its common for localbranch and remotebranch to be the same name, so "git push origin A" is an shorthand for "git push origin A:A"
