Re: [PATCH v4 0/7] update-ref: add symref support for --stdin

> From: Karthik Nayak <karthik.188@gmail.com>
>
> The 'update-ref' command is used to update refs using transactions. The
> command allows users to also utilize a '--stdin' mode to provide a
> batch of sub-commands which can be processed in a transaction.
>
> Currently, the sub-commands involve {verify, delete, create, update}
> and they allow users to work with regular refs in the repository. To
> work with symrefs, users only have the option of using
> 'git-symbolic-ref', which doesn't provide transaction support to the
> users eventhough it uses the same behind the hood.
>
> Recently, we modified the reference backend to add symref support,
> following which, 'git-symbolic-ref' also uses the transaction backend.
> But, it doesn't expose this to the user. To allow users to work with
> symrefs via transaction, this series adds support for new sub-commands
> {symrer-verify, symref-delete, symref-create, symref-update} to the
> '--stdin' mode of update-ref. These complement the existing
> sub-commands.
>
> The patches 1, 2, & 6 fix small issues in the reference backends. The other
> patches 3, 4, 5, & 7 each add one of the new sub-commands.
>
> The series is based off master, with 'kn/ref-transaction-symref' merged
> in.
>
> There was some discussion [1] also about adding `old_target` support to
> the existing `update` command. I think its worthwhile to do this with
> some tests cleanup, will follow that up as a separate series.
>
> Changes since v3:
> * Changed the position of `old_target` and `flags` in `ref_transaction_delete`
> to make it a coherent.
> * Added tests for deletion of regular refs using 'symref-delete', this lead to
> adding a new commit to have specific errors for when a regular update contains
> `old_target`.
>
> [1]: https://lore.kernel.org/r/CAOLa=ZQW-cCV5BP_fCvuZimfkjwAzjEiqXYRPft1Wf9kAX=_bw@mail.gmail.com
>