Re: [PATCH v2 0/3] contrib/subtree: reduce recursion during split

From: Colin Stagner <ask+git@howdoi.land>
Date: Jun 3, 2026, 01:37 UTC
Message-ID: <0915b5cc-5cbb-4cce-a832-147f85d4ff1f@howdoi.land>
In-Reply-To: <xmqqv7c13o5l.fsf@gitster.g>

On 6/1/26 17:13, Junio C Hamano wrote:

> I am tempted to mark the topic as stalled, to be discarded for
> inaction

No objection. I'd still like to see this reviewed, but we can revisit this later if interest develops.

> While I do agree that avoiding bash-isms in the main part of Git and
> sticking to vanilla POSIX has merit, this particular one seems more
> like an artificial limit imposed by dash than sticking to the POSIX
> as the common denoninator, at least to me.

Correct, this topic is a workaround for an artificial limit. The limit is Debian-specific and was introduced as a downstream patch in 2018 [1], [2].

This git-subtree issue has been reported before in

   <CAN7rbOve-EFOGPjr1wrD77r-3RQ+3+qso82_oV5Qud-skobL7w@mail.gmail.com>,

   <26263.63341.878041.155047@chiark.greenend.org.uk>,

and probably other places. These are old reports, and I haven't found anyone there still interested in a fix.

Colin

[1]: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=579815

[2]: https://sources.debian.org/patches/dash/0.5.12-12/0009-dash-Fix-stack-overflow-from-infinite-recursion-in-s.patch/