RE: git worktrees must exist even if locked

From: taylor, david <david.taylor@dell.com>
Date: May 15, 2017, 13:58 UTC
Message-ID: <63F1AEE13FAE864586D589C671A6E18B0D6B8C@MX203CL03.corp.emc.com>

The original report was against Git v2.12.2. I have since tried v2.12.3, v2.13.0, and the next branch. All exhibit the same symptoms.

Even if you ignore the original scenario for creating the problem, if I do a 'rm -rf' or 'mv' of a tree that contains within it worktrees, that should not break the use of Git with worktrees that live elsewhere nor commands that don't require a repository.

Show 46 quoted lines

> -----Original Message-----
> From: taylor, david
> Sent: Wednesday, May 10, 2017 4:25 PM
> To: git@vger.kernel.org
> Subject: git worktrees must exist even if locked
> 
> The Git documentation in describing worktrees says that one reason
> why you might want to lock a worktree is to prevent it from being pruned
> if it is on a removable media that isn't currently mounted.
> 
> So, my expectation was that if the worktree is inaccessible (and locked), Git
> would pretend that there is no worktree by that name.
> 
> In reality, if you have such a worktree, Git gets an error.
> 
>  On local systems, /home is local to a machine; home directories are
> elsewhere.
> Home directories are NFS mounted; /home is not.
> 
> . create a repository in /my/home/dir/my-repo.git with
> 
>     git clone --bare <some arguments>
> 
> . create an empty directory /home/somedir/worktree-tests
> 
> . use 'git worktree add' to add /home/somedir/worktree-tests/<branch-
> name>
>   as a worktree on branch <branch-name>.  It gets populated with the correct
>   content.
> 
> . lock it using'git worktree lock'
> 
> So far, so good.  Now, go to a different computer -- one on which
> /home/somedir/worktree-tests does not exist (and therefore
> /home/somedir/worktree-tests/<branch-name> does not exist).
> 
> . cd /my/home/dir/my-repo.git
> 
> Now, try issuing Git commands.  Many will fail.
> 
>   git fetch ==> fails:
> 
>   fatal: Invalid path '/home/somedir/worktree-tests': No such file or directory
> 
>   git status ==> fails -- same error as above
>   git help worktree ==> fails -- same error as above