Re: git -C has unexpected behaviour

From: Johannes Schindelin <johannes.schindelin@gmx.de>
Date: Nov 4, 2016, 16:36 UTC
Message-ID: <alpine.DEB.2.20.1611041719140.3108@virtualbox>
In-Reply-To: <CADJspfL3zVCPv+mfRM_v4ukUggQkhGH7KB50a+HLPZXZqn1pXw@mail.gmail.com>

Hi Felix,

On Fri, 4 Nov 2016, Felix Nairz wrote:

Show 13 quoted lines

> Now, to the unexpected part, which I think is a bug:
> 
> If the TestData folder is there, but empty (I deleted all the files),
> then running
> 
> git -C .\TestData reset --hard
> 
> will NOT throw me an error but run
> 
> git reset --hard
> 
> on the git repository (not the submodule in the sub-directory!),
> without warning, or error.

I *think* that this is actually intended. Please note that -C is *not* a synonym of --git-dir. It is more of a synonym of

	cd .\TestData
	git reset --hard

In other words, you probably expected -C to specify the top-level directory of a worktree, and you expected Git to error out when it is not. Instead, Git will treat -C as a directory *from where to start*; It *can* be a subdirectory of the top-level directory of the worktree.

Please note that

	git --git-dir=.\TestData\.git reset --hard

will not work, though, as it mistakes the current directory for the top-level directory of the worktree. What you want to do is probably

	git -C .\TestData --git-dir=.git reset --hard

This will tell Git to change the current working directory to the top-level of your intended worktree, *and* state that the repository needs to be in .git (which can be a file containing "gitdir: <real-git-dir>", which is the default in submodules).

If the repository is *not* found, this command will exit with a failure.

Ciao, Johannes