Re: [PATCH] Add platform-independent .git "symlink"

From: Brandon Casey <casey@nrlssc.navy.mil>
Date: Feb 4, 2008, 22:44 UTC
Message-ID: <47A79541.6070900@nrlssc.navy.mil>
In-Reply-To: <alpine.LSU.1.00.0802042218280.8543@racer.site>

Johannes Schindelin wrote:

Show 22 quoted lines

> Hi,
> 
> On Mon, 4 Feb 2008, Brandon Casey wrote:
> 
>> Johannes Schindelin wrote:
>>> On Mon, 4 Feb 2008, Brandon Casey wrote:
>>>> Have you thought about using git-clone instead?
>>> Briefly.  But this is not about cloning the repository.  It is about 
>>> having an additional working directory for the current repository.
>> I think that is true at the low level, but from a high level it feels 
>> similar to me.
>>
>> [...]
>>
>>> I _want_ the original repository to know that there is another working 
>>> directory.
>> Yes, your ideas are much better than simply adding the functionality of 
>> the git-new-workdir script (which is what I was planning on doing btw :)
> 
> Somehow these two statements do not work together.  Either you have a 
> clone, or you accept that a new working directory is actually working on 
> the _same_ repository.

When we talk about clones we are not always talking about a strict "full" clone. We have at least:

	1) Full clone repository (with/without hardlinks, each is completely
	   independent)
	2) --shared/--reference (dependent on original repo, fragile)
	3) shallow repository (mostly independent)

If your statement above is rephrased to "I _want_ the original repository to know that it has conjoined siblings.", then we have a new repository type:

	4) conjoined repository (it has multiple sibling repositories each
	   with their own working directory, but they all share and modify the
	   same .git directory)

-brandon