Re: [PATCH] blame: default to HEAD in a bare repo when no start commit is given

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Apr 9, 2019, 08:13 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqmukz7fzy.fsf@gitster-ct.c.googlers.com>
In-Reply-To: <878swkacok.fsf@evledraar.gmail.com>

Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab@gmail.com> writes:

> There was the explicit decision not to fall back to HEAD in 1cfe77333f
> ("git-blame: no rev means start from the working tree file.",
> 2007-01-30). This change makes sense to me, but perhaps some discussion
> or reference to the previous commit is warranted?

Yes. That is a good suggestion. I do not think the original meant to say that no rev should error out in a bare repository because no rev must mean 'start from te working tree' and there is no way to satisify it in a bare repository.

> Both are bad & misleading, perhaps we can instead say something like:
>
>     die(_("in a bare repository you must specify a ref to blame from, we tried and failed to implicitly use HEAD"));

Sounds like an easy-to-understand message, albeit way too looong.

> Along with a test for what we do in bare repos without a HEAD....?
> ...
> ....just 'git update-ref -d HEAD` after this and a test for 'git blame
> <file>' here would test bare without HEAD.

That's a cute way to bring us on an unborn branch, but let's not promote it too much. Doing so while on detached HEAD will render your repository corrupt.