Re: [PATCH 14/21] Add proper parsing of "tagger" line, but only when thorough_verify is set

From: Johannes Schindelin <johannes.schindelin@gmx.de>
Date: Jun 10, 2007, 08:52 UTC
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.64.0706100945290.4059@racer.site>
In-Reply-To: <200706090218.41941.johan@herland.net>

Hi,

On Sat, 9 Jun 2007, Johan Herland wrote:

Show 5 quoted lines

> Be explicit about the fact that the "tagger" line is now considered a 
> mandatory part of the tag object. There are however old tags (from 
> before July 2005) that don't have a "tagger" line. We therefore consider 
> the "tagger" line _optional_ when parsing tags without thorough_verify 
> set.

No. The "before July 2005" part is _not_ the reason that we consider this line optional.

The fact that it is bad to fail on a fetch, just because you happen to have an invalid tag in your repository, is a good reason not to.

The fact that it is bad to fail on a git branch, just because you happen to have an invalid tag in your repository, is a good reason not to.

The fact that it is bad to fail on an fsck, just because you happen to have an invalid tag in your repository, is a good reason not to.

And yes, if I remember correctly, your original patch did exactly that.

The paradigm to follow is: fail gracefully. I could have an invalid _commit_ in my repository, and would still want _every_ Git operation to succeed, _as long_ as it does not touch that bad object.

And I damned well want git-fsck to not crash, just because some assumptions are made.

Since this is a fundamental critique on your patch series, I will do the detailed review on _this_ patch in another mail.

Ciao, Dscho