Re: http-protocol question

From: Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>
Date: Dec 2, 2014, 04:45 UTC
Message-ID: <20141202044522.GZ6527@google.com>
In-Reply-To: <CAGyf7-GZbRBN4O_yNgrmJCya=6f8XQ4O8m7WBa1k8Ve196ajYQ@mail.gmail.com>

Hi,

Bryan Turner wrote:

> The reason I ask is that there is a race condition that exists where
> the ref advertisement lists refs/heads/foo at abc1234, and then foo is
> deleted before the actual upload-pack request comes in.

Can you say more about the context? For example, was this actually happening, or is this for the sake of understanding the protocol better?

I ask because knowing the context might help us give more specific advice.

Sometimes when people delete a branch they really want those objects to be inaccessible *right away*. So for such people, git's behavior of failing the request unless the objects are still accessible by some other path is helpful.

A stateful server could theoretically cache the list of objects they have advertised for a short time, to avoid clients having to suffer when something becomes inaccessible during the window between the upload-pack advertisement and upload-pack request. Or a permissive server can allow all wants except a specific blacklist (and some people do that).

Jonathan