Re: [PATCH 3/3] sha1-file: change alternate "error:" message to "warning:"

From: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date: Dec 5, 2018, 05:54 UTC
Message-ID: <20181205055415.GA12980@sigill.intra.peff.net>
In-Reply-To: <xmqqva48d4o9.fsf@gitster-ct.c.googlers.com>

On Wed, Dec 05, 2018 at 12:37:58PM +0900, Junio C Hamano wrote:

Show 16 quoted lines

> Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason  <avarab@gmail.com> writes:
> 
> > Change the "error" message emitted by alt_odb_usable() to be a
> > "warning" instead. As noted in commits leading up to this one this has
> > never impacted the exit code ever since the check was initially added
> > in 26125f6b9b ("detect broken alternates.", 2006-02-22).
> >
> > It's confusing to emit an "error" when e.g. "git fsck" will exit with
> > 0, so let's emit a "warning:" instead.
> 
> OK, that sounds sensible.  An alternative that may be more sensible
> is to actually diagnose this as an error, but the purpose of this
> message is to help users diagnose a possible misconfiguration and
> keeping the repository "working" with the remaining set of object
> stores by leaving it as a mere warning, like this patch does, is
> probably a better approach.

Yeah, I think it's better to keep it as a warning. It's actually reasonably likely to be benign (e.g., you did a "git repack -ad && rm /path/to/alternate" to remove the dependency, but forgot to clean up the alternates). And when it _is_ a problem, the object-reading code paths will definitely let you know.

-Peff