Re: An idea: maybe Git should use a lock/unlock file mode for problematic files? [Was: Re: after first git clone of linux kernel repository there are changed files in working dir]

From: Daniel Barkalow <barkalow@iabervon.org>
Date: Jan 21, 2009, 00:03 UTC
Message-ID: <alpine.LNX.1.00.0901201833400.19665@iabervon.org>
In-Reply-To: <81b0412b0901201525w22513418p57acc19457908a3@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, 21 Jan 2009, Alex Riesen wrote:

Show 12 quoted lines

> 2009/1/20 Daniel Barkalow <barkalow@iabervon.org>:
> > My impression was that this didn't happen in practice, because teams
> > would tend to not have two people create the same file at the same time,
> > but with different cases, and people interacting with the same file at
> > different times would use whatever case it was introduced with.
> 
> It will and does happen in practice (annoingly too often even). Not with Git
> yet (with Perforce), where people do "branching" by simply copying things
> in another directory (perforce world does not know real branches),
> renaming files randomly, and putting the new directory back in the
> system (or maybe it is the strange tools here which do that - often
> it is the first character of a directory or file which gets down- or up-cased).

How does the resulting code work at all? With a case-sensitive filesystem, most of the files you're using don't have the expected names any more, and most systems will therefore not actually build or run.

I have to assume it's your strange tools, because we never have this problem at my work, where we also use Perforce. Perhaps it's that we always use "p4 integrate //some/project/version/... //some/other/project/version/..." which inherently preserves the case of all of the filenames within the project.

Show 13 quoted lines

> As Perforce itself is case sensitive (like Git), using of such branches
> is a nightmare: the files get overwritten in checkout order which is
> not always sorted in predictable order. Combined with case-stupidity
> of the file system the working directories sometimes cause "interesting
> time" for unlucky users.
> Luckily (sadly) it is all-opening-in-a-wall shop, so the problem with "fanthom"
> files is rare (it is hard to notice) for most. Which actually makes it more
> frustrating when the real shit happens.
> 
> And it will happen to Git as well, especially if development go crossplatform.
> It is not that hard to accidentally rename a file on case-sensitive file system,
> "git add *" it and commit without thinking (that's how most of software
> development happens, come to think of it).

People can accidentally rename files? And still have things work when they do it on a case-sensitive filesystem?

	-Daniel
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