From: Marc Branchaud <marcnarc@xiplink.com>
Date: Wed, 09 Jul 2025 16:33:49 GMT
Subject: Re: git-subtree documentation fix request: split example causes fatal error
Message-ID: <44b6c207-b02b-401a-a621-f4023e780240@xiplink.com>
In-Reply-To: <6907e423-324f-459f-a62e-fe6be14f4f73@akr.yagii.de>


On 2025-07-09 07:01, Alexander Krupp wrote:
> Thank you for filling out a Git bug report!
> Please answer the following questions to help us understand your issue.
> 
> What did you do before the bug happened? (Steps to reproduce your issue)
> 
> Read the documentation on git-subtree and try it:
> 
>  > git clone git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/git/git.git test-git
> Cloning into 'test-git'...
> remote: Enumerating objects: 392367, done.
> remote: Counting objects: 100% (7710/7710), done.
> remote: Compressing objects: 100% (1126/1126), done.
> remote: Total 392367 (delta 7015), reused 7002 (delta 6575), pack-reused 
> 384657
> Receiving objects: 100% (392367/392367), 131.92 MiB | 49.57 MiB/s, done.
> Resolving deltas: 100% (296075/296075), done.
>  > cd test-git/
>  > git subtree split --prefix=gitweb --annotate='(split) ' \
>  >                      0a8f4f0^.. --onto=1130ef3 --rejoin \
>  >                      --branch gitweb-latest
> fatal: '0a8f4f0^..' does not refer to a commit
>  >

Thanks for reporting this!  I also just ran into it when following 
subtree's documentation.

The problem stems from this:
	git rev-parse -q --verify "$1^{commit}" >/dev/null ||
		die "fatal: '$1' does not refer to a commit"

Here, $1 is the "0a8f4f0^.." part.

I then tried removing the "..", which lets the command run but then I 
ended up with an empty result.  Not sure why that happens, though.

I've CC'd subtree's author, Avery (as identified in 
contrib/subtree/README), and David, who added this check long ago 
(commit 10a49587fab).

		M.

> What did you expect to happen? (Expected behavior)
> 
> Example should work as documented.
> 
> What happened instead? (Actual behavior)
> 
> see above.
> 
> What's different between what you expected and what actually happened?
> 
> Anything else you want to add:
> 
> Recommend a fix of the documentation. Due to lack of experience with 
> subtree I cannot provide.
> 
> Please review the rest of the bug report below.
> You can delete any lines you don't wish to share.
> 
> 
> [System Info]
> git version:
> git version 2.43.0
> cpu: x86_64
> no commit associated with this build
> sizeof-long: 8
> sizeof-size_t: 8
> shell-path: /bin/sh
> uname: Linux 6.4.0-150600.23.50-default #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Fri May 9 
> 22:09:52 UTC 2025 (dee422c) x86_64
> compiler info: gnuc: 7.5
> libc info: glibc: 2.38
> $SHELL (typically, interactive shell): /bin/bash
> 
> 
> [Enabled Hooks]