Re: [PATCH 03/13] init: unconditionally create the "info" directory

> 
> On Mon, Dec 20 2021, Derrick Stolee wrote:
> 
>> On 12/20/2021 11:13 AM, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason wrote:
>>>
>>> On Mon, Dec 20 2021, Derrick Stolee wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 12/12/2021 3:13 PM, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason wrote:
>>>>> But we've also grown a hard dependency on this directory within git
>>>>> itself. Since 94c0956b609 (sparse-checkout: create builtin with 'list'
>>>>> subcommand, 2019-11-21) released with v2.25.0 the "git
>>>>> sparse-checkout" command has wanted to add exclusions to
>>>>> "info/sparse-checkout". It didn't check or create the leading
>>>>> directory, so if it's omitted the command will die.
>>>>
>>>>> Even if that behavior were fixed we'd be left with older versions of
>>>>> "git" dying if that was attempted if they used a repository
>>>>> initialized without a template.
>>>>
>>>> This, I don't understand. Why can't we add a
>>>> safe_create_leading_directories() to any place where we try to
>>>> create a sparse-checkout file?
>>>>
>>>> This would fix situations where older versions were init'd with a
>>>> different template or if the user deleted the info dir. The change
>>>> you've made here doesn't fix those cases, which is what you are
>>>> claiming is the reason to not do the other fix that seems like it
>>>> would.
>>>>
>>>> What am I misunderstanding here?
>>>
>>> I'll clarify that a bit in any re-roll.
>>>
>>> Pedantically nothing changes, i.e. you can create a repository with an
>>> empty template now, and it'll break on both the sparse-checkout on that
>>> version, and any previous version that had that un-noticed issue.
>>
>> You continue after this with more motivations for adding 'init' 
>> unconditionally, which I am not fighting.
>>
>> What I _am_ saying is important is that if we are trying to write
>> a file to a known location and its parent directory doesn't exist,
>> then we should create it. Not doing so is a bug and should be
>> fixed, no matter how rare such a thing is to occur. As you've
>> shown, it is not required to have an info directory until we need
>> one (e.g. for sparse-checkout or an excludes file).
>>
>> If you're not planning to add that to this series, then I'll add it
>> to my list. I do think it would fit well into this one, though.
> 
> Just so we'll avoid stepping on each other's toes, what's the status of
> your plan/non-plan to work on that more isolated fix, perhaps you have
> one that's unsubmitted?