[PATCH v7 11/12] technical/shallow: describe why shallow cannot use replace refs

From: Johannes Schindelin <johannes.schindelin@gmx.de>
Date: Apr 28, 2018, 22:45 UTC
Message-ID: <196c4ec85feb602ce9a89ced5e0ee008a86a1028.1524955439.git.johannes.schindelin@gmx.de>
In-Reply-To: <cover.1524955439.git.johannes.schindelin@gmx.de>

It is tempting to do away with commit_graft altogether (in the long haul), now that grafts are deprecated.

However, the shallow feature needs a couple of things that the replace refs cannot fulfill. Let's point that out in the documentation.

Signed-off-by: Johannes Schindelin <johannes.schindelin@gmx.de>
---
 Documentation/technical/shallow.txt | 7 +++++++
 1 file changed, 7 insertions(+)

diff --git a/Documentation/technical/shallow.txt b/Documentation/technical/shallow.txt
index 4ec721335d2..01dedfe9ffe 100644
--- a/Documentation/technical/shallow.txt
+++ b/Documentation/technical/shallow.txt
@@ -17,6 +17,13 @@ Each line contains exactly one SHA-1. When read, a commit_graft
 will be constructed, which has nr_parent < 0 to make it easier
 to discern from user provided grafts.
 
+Note that the shallow feature could not be changed easily to
+use replace refs: a commit containing a `mergetag` is not allowed
+to be replaced, not even by a root commit. Such a commit can be
+made shallow, though. Also, having a `shallow` file explicitly
+listing all the commits made shallow makes it a *lot* easier to
+do shallow-specific things such as to deepen the history.
+
 Since fsck-objects relies on the library to read the objects,
 it honours shallow commits automatically.

-- 
2.17.0.windows.1.36.gdf4ca5fb72a