Re: [PATCH v1 2/4] ref: add regular ref content check for files backend

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Aug 22, 2024, 16:13 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqq1q2gtu19.fsf@gitster.g>
In-Reply-To: <Zsb64NTyqc_oHNFO@tanuki>

Patrick Steinhardt <ps@pks.im> writes:

> So any reference that contains additional data is not a proper ref and
> thus should be warned about from my point of view. No Git tooling should
> write them, so if something does it's a red flag to me.

If you find such a file in $GIT_DIR/refs/ hierarchy, because our consumer side has been looser than necessary forever, and we never have written such a file ourselves, it is a sign that a third-party tool wrote it, and that the third-party tool used our reader implementation as the specification. That is why I am hesitant to retroactively tighten the rules like this patch does.

Thanks.

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