Re: [PATCH] pack-refs: dereference .git/packed-refs if it is a symlink

From: Junio C Hamano <junkio@cox.net>
Date: Apr 21, 2007, 20:05 UTC
Message-ID: <7vk5w5trvl.fsf@assigned-by-dhcp.cox.net>
In-Reply-To: <20070420165256.GA14318@xp.machine.xx>

Peter Baumann <waste.manager@gmx.de> writes:

Show 8 quoted lines

> git-new-workdir creates a new working directory where everything
> necessary, including .git/packed-refs, is symlinked to your master repo.
> But git-pack-refs breaks the symlink, so you could accidentally loose some
> refs.
>
> This fixes git-pack-refs to first dereference .git/packed-refs if it is a
> symlink. While we are it, add some tests to prevent this from happening
> again.

Because you are only fixing the case where the worktree is borrowing the packed-refs file from a real repository with a symlink trick, and we do not know if somebody had his packed-refs as a symlink to some random place for reasons other than creating a lightweight worktree (maybe there was a mistake), I am wondering if it makes sense to be more strict about the value we read from readlink().

For example, if it does not end with "/packed-refs", doesn't it suggest that the reason because the symlink is there is different from the case you are handling (i.e. it is not a packed-refs symlink in a lightweight worktree that points at the corresponding real repository)? I wonder if in such a case we would want to signal an error, instead of overwriting whatever real file the symlink points at. Or is it too strict and paranoid? I dunno.