Re: git-new-workdir for filesystems without links (e.g. FAT32)?

From: Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>
Date: Feb 6, 2011, 19:14 UTC
Message-ID: <20110206191459.GA17939@elie>
In-Reply-To: <loom.20110206T151206-851@post.gmane.org>

Hi Piotr,

Piotr Krukowiecki wrote:

> git-new-workdir requires soft links to work, so obviously it will fail if file 
> system does not support them. Is there any other way for having multiple working 
> dirs with one repository?

I assume you mean a way to share refs between repositories without using symlinks? Then alas, that is not implemented, though there is some interest. See [1] for details.

It should not be impossible, I think --- something for refs analagous to the ".git file" mechanism might make perfect sense (see v1.5.6-rc0~93^2~3, Add platform-independent .git "symlink", 2008-02-20 and "git log --grep='git file'" to see development since then). The main distinction here is that the target of a refs "symlink" should also be aware of it, to avoid garbage collecting the shared objects.

If on the other hand you just want to share objects (not refs) between repositories, the GIT_OBJECT_DIRECTORY environment variable might help.

Good luck, Jonathan

[1] http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/150559/focus=150693