Re: git ls-tree -d doesn't work if the specified path is the repository root?

From: Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>
Date: Sep 25, 2017, 22:25 UTC
Message-ID: <20170925222556.GH27425@aiede.mtv.corp.google.com>
In-Reply-To: <CAF5E6=pqGZt_BUDRDeN2uAQK7qBTeO+zcR8NsvSPg-rLjbsqdQ@mail.gmail.com>

Hi,

Roy Wellington wrote:

Show 8 quoted lines

> When I run `git ls-tree -d HEAD -- subdir` from the root of my
> repository, where `subdir` is a subdirectory in that root, I get the
> treehash of that subdirectory. This is what I expect.
>
> However, if I merely replace `subdir` with `.` (the root of the
> repository), (i.e., `git ls-tree -d HEAD -- .`) git ls-tree returns
> the treehashes of the /children/ of the root, instead of the root
> itself, contrary to the documented behavior of -d.

Can you be more specific? What documentation led you to this expectation?

I don't have a strong opinion about this behavior, but in any case if the documentation and command disagree about the correct behavior then one of them needs to be fixed. :)

> Is there some reason for this? This behavior seems like a bug to me:
> it means that prior to calling ls-tree I need to check if the
> referenced path happens to be the root, and if so, find some other
> means (rev-parse?) of converting it to a treehash.

Does

	git rev-parse HEAD:subdir

work better for what you're trying to accomplish? To get the root of the repository, you can use

	git rev-parse HEAD:

Thanks and hope that helps, Jonathan