Re: [PATCH] ignores: handle non UTF-8 exclude files

From: Matthieu Beauchamp <matthieu.beauchamp.boulay@gmail.com>
Date: Jan 6, 2026, 19:52 UTC
Message-ID: <CALH9GrYpWG2WPM76WDFnK-tFFTFtg3hZFLjg3z27gOYKeXpmxw@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <xmqqsecmnl3d.fsf@gitster.g>

On Sat, Jan 3, 2026 at 9:54 PM Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:

Show 15 quoted lines

>
> "Matthieu Beauchamp-Boulay via GitGitGadget"
> <gitgitgadget@gmail.com> writes:
>
> > From: Matthieu Beauchamp-Boulay <matthieu.beauchamp.boulay@gmail.com>
> >
> > When reading exclude files, git assumes it is encoded in UTF-8 and will
> > fail to apply patterns if it isn't.
>
> Is it true?  I thought we assume that the exclude patters are
> written in such a way to match the encoding of the pathnames,
> whatever used on the platform that our calls to readdir(3) returns.
> Some platforms may have compat/ code to convert these paths and
> force use of UTF-8, but please do not write such platform local
> conventions as if it were universal characteristics of our system.

I believe you are correct, I wrongly assumed git would always manipulate UTF-8 paths. The revision will need to take the platform into consideration.

> "ignores" -> "exclude" on the title, as that is the canonical word
> we use in the codebase to refer to the ignore mechanism.

Thank you, I will update in the revision.