From: Jonathan Tan <jonathantanmy@google.com>
Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2021 22:05:36 GMT
Subject: Re: [RFC PATCH 1/2] refs: make _advance() check struct repo, not flag
Message-ID: <20210916220536.1107783-1-jonathantanmy@google.com>
In-Reply-To: <xmqqilz0rxpm.fsf@gitster.g>

> > Yes, the packed backend doesn't need to be a ref backend.
> 
> Sorry, I do not follow.  Do you mean we cannot have a version of Git
> that offers say a read-only access to the repository without any
> loose refs, with the default ref backend being the packed one?
> 
> Or do you mean that we can ignore such a hypothetical use case and
> could reimplement the files backend that can also understand the
> $GIT_DIR/packed-refs file directly without "deferring to another ref
> backend which is 'packed'"?

I meant the latter - more specifically, the files backend could defer to
functions that are not necessarily inside a struct ref_storage_be.