From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2025 16:15:04 GMT
Subject: Re: [PATCH v2] refs/files: deprecate writing symrefs as symbolic links
Message-ID: <xmqqo6q8uoon.fsf@gitster.g>
In-Reply-To: <20251015-pks-ref-files-deprecate-symbolic-links-v2-1-0529ba48db41@pks.im>

Patrick Steinhardt <ps@pks.im> writes:

> The "files" backend has the ability to store symbolic refs as symbolic
> links, which can be configured via "core.preferSymlinkRefs". This
> feature stems back from the early days: the initial implementation of
> symbolic refs used symlinks exclusively. The symref format was only
> introduced in 9b143c6e15 (Teach update-ref about a symbolic ref stored
> in a textfile., 2005-09-25) and made the default in 9f0bb90d16
> (core.prefersymlinkrefs: use symlinks for .git/HEAD, 2006-05-02).
>
> This is all about 20 years ago, and there are no known reasons nowadays
> why one would want to use symlinks instead of symrefs. Mark the feature
> for deprecation in Git 3.0.
>
> Note that this only deprecates _writing_ symrefs as symbolic links.
> Reading such symrefs is still supported for now.
>
> Signed-off-by: Patrick Steinhardt <ps@pks.im>
> ---
> Hi,
>
> as discussed in [1], this small patch deprecates
> "core.preferSymlinkRefs". Thanks!
>
> Changes in v2:
>   - Tweaks for the deprecation announcement.
>   - Use "textual symref format" instead of "symref format".
>   - Warn after having created the symlink so that we don't drown out
>     messages from `die()` that may have happened in
>     `get_locked_file_path()`.
>   - Link to v1: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20251014-pks-ref-files-deprecate-symbolic-links-v1-1-4bcd6a4ef6f5@pks.im

Looking good.  Will replace.

Thanks.