Re: `git worktree list` when bare repository is named `.git`

From: Rebecca Turner <rbt@fastmail.com>
Date: Oct 11, 2024, 04:59 UTC
Message-ID: <444a412d-bf4c-4bbe-8250-18d8bc86fd21@app.fastmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <D4SO70M9Z1QI.1AC4QF9ZG8T4L@pm.me>

> The actual bare repository can be the directory, in a .git directory,
> or in any other directory (as long as it has a .git file that points
> to the actual bare repository). The directory will still be considered a
> bare repository.

Perhaps your example got scrambled, but I can't quite reproduce it:

$ mkdir -p repo/.bare $ cd repo/.bare $ git init --bare Initialized empty Git repository in /private/tmp/repo/.bare/ $ git worktree list /private/tmp/repo/.bare (bare) $ cd .. $ git worktree list fatal: not a git repository (or any of the parent directories): .git $ echo 'gitdir: .bare' >.git $ git worktree list /private/tmp/repo/.bare (bare)

It seems like the $GIT_DIR is shown in the worktree list here, and when I add a `.git` file pointing to `.bare` manually, that doesn't get listed. (Which I suppose makes sense, because it's not a `git-worktree(1)` worktree, but still seems a little bit odd?)

Show 8 quoted lines

> For the purposes of `git worktree list`, the `.git` suffix **should not** be
> shown. You should never try to use `git worktree list` to get the actual path
> of the repository, the docs give the following warning:
>
>     See gitrepository-layout[5] for more information. The rule of thumb is do
>     not make any assumption about whether a path belongs to $GIT_DIR or
>     $GIT_COMMON_DIR when you need to directly access something inside $GIT_DIR.
>     Use git rev-parse --git-path to get the final path.

I understood this note to be talking about paths _within_ the `$GIT_DIR` or `$GIT_COMMON_DIR` itself; I see no reason why `git worktree list` wouldn't list a bare repository _consistently_ as either the `$GIT_DIR` or the parent of the `$GIT_DIR`.

What I'd like to do is get the path of the worktree so that I can move it. `git worktree list` gives me this information _except_ for bare repositories in directories named `.git`. I'm happy to have a special case for this, but I'd like to understand the principle here.

Maybe I'm just not supposed to name a bare repository `.git`? The `gitrepository-layout(5)` page does seem to imply this is mutually exclusive with bare repositories:

Show 7 quoted lines

> A Git repository comes in two different flavours:
>
> •    a .git directory at the root of the working tree;
>
> •    a <project>.git directory that is a bare repository (i.e. without its
>      own working tree), that is typically used for exchanging histories with
>      others by pushing into it and fetching from it.

Thanks for your help!