Re: [RFC/PATCH 4/4] Disallow working directory commands in a bare repository.

From: Junio C Hamano <junkio@cox.net>
Date: Dec 31, 2006, 19:19 UTC
Message-ID: <7vr6ufeuvf.fsf@assigned-by-dhcp.cox.net>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.63.0612311606330.22628@wbgn013.biozentrum.uni-wuerzburg.de>

Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de> writes:

Show 13 quoted lines

>> While we're talking about potentially deprecating GIT_DIR for users,
>> out of curiosity, what valid workflows would cause users to want to
>> use GIT_INDEX_FILE and GIT_OBJECT_DIRECTORY?  Seems like they would
>> cause more confusion and support problems than anything else.  
>
> Easy, guys.
>
> It is a valid -- indeed, useful -- thing to be able to script nice 
> helpers. For example, in one project I track tar balls. So, I wrote a 
> script which will unpack the tar ball in a directory, build a new index 
> from it, and commit the corresponding tree on top of the tracking branch. 
> This setup relies _heavily_ on being able to redirect GIT_INDEX_FILE and 
> GIT_DIR.

I do agree INDEX_FILE and OBJECT_DIRECTORY are handy things for the user to muck around. What I am not sure about is GIT_DIR, in the sense that I suspect it is not such a pain to do without for such a script.

Show 7 quoted lines

> ...  Now, if somebody starts git in a 
> bare repo, where "index" is present, it could die with a helpful message 
> like
>
> 	It seems that this is a bare git repository, but there is an index 
> 	file present, which contradicts that assumption. If the repository
> 	is indeed bare, please remove the index file.

That is probably worse.

 * there is no reason for non working-tree operations such as
   git-log to fail when you go to a bare repository (or for that
   matter .git in a repository with a working-tree).  we should
   not have to error out nor remove the index we will not use.

 * if you did the above in response to a misguided 'git
   checkout' in a bare repository, the next error message the
   user will get will be 'huh?  you are in a bare repository,
   bozo'.

So I do not think the helpful message should even be necessary.