Re: [PATCH] difftool: handle changing symlinks in dir-diff mode

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Mar 13, 2017, 21:33 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqinncrhey.fsf@gitster.mtv.corp.google.com>
In-Reply-To: <alpine.DEB.2.20.1703132204410.3767@virtualbox>

Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de> writes:

Show 13 quoted lines

>> > +	if (strbuf_readlink(&link, ce->name, ce_namelen(ce)) == 0) {
>> > +		strbuf_add(&path, state->base_dir, state->base_dir_len);
>> > +		strbuf_add(&path, ce->name, ce_namelen(ce));
>> > +
>> > +		write_file_buf(path.buf, link.buf, link.len);
>> 
>> This does "write content into symlink stand-in file", but why?
>
> From the commit message:
>
> 	> Detect the null object ID for symlinks in dir-diff so that
> 	> difftool can prepare temporary files that matches how git
> 	> handles symlinks.

Yes I read what the proposed log message said, and noticed that symbolic link is _always_ written as a regular file.

I was questioning why. I know Git falls back to such behaviour when the filesystem does not support symbolic links. "Why do so unconditionally, even when the filesystem does?" was the question.

> The obvious connection: when core.symlinks = false, Git already falls back
> to writing plain files with the link target as contents. This function
> does the same, for the same motivation: it is the best we can do in this
> case.

And that "obvious connection" does not answer the question.