Re: [PATCHv2 5/5] fast-import: Fix minor data-loss issue with directories becoming symlinks

From: Shawn O. Pearce <spearce@spearce.org>
Date: Jul 6, 2010, 19:34 UTC
Message-ID: <20100706193455.GA19476@spearce.org>
In-Reply-To: <1278442295-23033-6-git-send-email-newren@gmail.com>

newren@gmail.com wrote:

Show 13 quoted lines

> From: Elijah Newren <newren@gmail.com>
> 
> When fast-export runs across a directory changing to a symlink, it will
> output the changes in the form
>   M 120000 :239821 dir-changing-to-symlink
>   D dir-changing-to-symlink/filename1
> When fast-import sees the first line, it deletes the directory named
> dir-changing-to-symlink (and any files below it) and creates a symlink in
> its place.  When fast-import came across the second line, it was previously
> trying to remove the file and relevant leading directories in
> tree_content_remove(), and as a side effect it would delete the symlink
> that was just created.  This resulted in the symlink silently missing from
> the resulting repository.

Ugh.

I'm not against making the input parser more robust, but this is a violation of the stream format from fast-export. The stream is incremental, a command like 'M' takes place immediately. It is wrong for a frontend to output 'M foo', then 'D foo/bar'.

IMHO, if fast-export is doing what you say above, the bug lies in
fast-export, and therefore the fix should too.

-- 
Shawn.