Re: Implement core.symlinks to support filesystems without symlinks

From: Johannes Schindelin <johannes.schindelin@gmx.de>
Date: Mar 1, 2007, 01:18 UTC
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.63.0703010213420.22628@wbgn013.biozentrum.uni-wuerzburg.de>
In-Reply-To: <200702282348.51478.robin.rosenberg.lists@dewire.com>

Hi,

On Wed, 28 Feb 2007, Robin Rosenberg wrote:

Show 8 quoted lines

> onsdag 28 februari 2007 01:07 skrev Johannes Schindelin:
>
> > Your solution would fall short if one of the two files is changed. 
> > Since they are supposed to be symlinks, the application expects them 
> > to be identical, and weird sh*t happens.
>
> As will it when the file contain something completly different than 
> expected.

My points are these:

- If your project depends on symlinks, and you are on a system that does 
  not do symlinks, you're screwed. However, you might want to checkout the 
  project nevertheless.

- If you have a symlink, and your system does not do symlinks, you want 
  the information where the symlink points to, at least _somewhere_. 
  Without digging deep into Git internals.

- If you have a symlink, and your system ..., you want it to fail _early_.

The last point is reaaaaally important. There is a reason why we have compiler errors, instead of just blindly compiling it, and if that particular code path is triggered, explode in the face of the user.

So, all I would like to do on top of Johannes' patch is to add a _big_ _fat_ warning whenever Git realizes it has to substitute a file for a link, but I DON'T WANT THE BLOODY FILE TO BE COPIED.

Ciao, Dscho