GIT: Problems Understanding Branch Naming Convention

I am having problem understanding the differences between 'master' 'origin master' 'origin/master', 'remotes/origin/master'!! Is there any rule for naming GIT branches? I suppose 'origin master' is the master branch in the repository while origin/master is my local reflection of the repository master branch, then what is remotes/origin/master?! Also, sometimes I have开发者_JAVA技巧 to use origin/master to refer to the repository master branch (I forget the case though, but I feel I have been into such thing before), why is that?

You should read up on the git branching model to understand this properly. However, following is a quick and dirty explanation.

Branches in git are pointers to certain nodes in the DAG tree of commits. They will move when you perform some operations (e.g. a commit). master is one such pointer which is by default the one created when you initialise a fresh repository. It's your "main branch" (so to speak).

Since git is a distributed version control system, there's a difference between your local repository and a remote one (like one on github). These are called remotes and when you clone for the first time, the remote from which you cloned is automatically created and named origin (i.e. where your code originated from).

When you say <remote>/<branch>, it's referring the location of the pointer <branch> not on your local clone but on the <remote>. So if, after cloning, you make 10 commits to your local branch, master (your local branch) will be 10 commits ahead of origin/master. To make it clear to git that we're talking about a remote, the convention remotes/<remote_name>/<branch_name> is used.

I think you need to read the book which I've linked to before you use git. It's a little non-intuitive for people coming from a version control system like svn or others. The branching model for git is a lot simpler than the ones for centralised systems.