Re: Antw: [EXT] Re: bug in "git fsck"?

From: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab@gmail.com>
Date: Jul 5, 2021, 07:26 UTC
Message-ID: <87fswt6wxb.fsf@evledraar.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <60E2B04B020000A100042291@gwsmtp.uni-regensburg.de>

On Mon, Jul 05 2021, Ulrich Windl wrote:

Show 24 quoted lines

>>>> Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> schrieb am 02.07.2021 um 20:15 in
> Nachricht
> <xmqqczs0popg.fsf@gitster.g>:
>> "Ulrich Windl" <Ulrich.Windl@rz.uni‑regensburg.de> writes:
>> 
>>> I was wondering whether git fsck should be able to cleanup
>>> orphaned branches ("HEAD points to an unborn branch") as described
>>> in https://stackoverflow.com/q/68226081/6607497 It seems I can fix
>>> it be editing files in the repository, but I feed that's not the
>>> way it should be.
>> 
>> HEAD pointing at an unborn branch is not even a corruption, isn't
>> it?
>> 
>>    $ rm ‑rf trash && git init trash
>> 
>> would point HEAD at an unborn one, ready to be used.
>
>
> OK, so maybe I was just confused by "fsck". At it seems after committing, fsck
> no longer complains.
> As "EXTRACTED DIAGNOSTICS" In man git-fsck (Git 2.26.2) does not mention
> "unborn" (and as it's not a common IT phrase), one could probably explain what
> it means.

FWIW you're completely right about the unstated point that fsck's error messages/reporting is pretty bad. I've been trying to fix some of it up recently (including one hopefully soon-to-land series).

It has a bunch of output that's overly verbose, and other complaints where it's not clear if they're actionable or not (e.g. what you mentioned), or whether it's even a problem.

If I create an ext4 filesystem and run fsck on it it's not going to complain that there's no files yet, so it's a bit silly that fsck complains about a freshly git-init'd repo.