Re: [PATCH v4 07/11] Documentation/replace: tell that -f option bypasses the type check

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Sep 4, 2013, 20:48 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqppsol3ds.fsf@gitster.dls.corp.google.com>
In-Reply-To: <20130903071026.29838.52710.chriscool@tuxfamily.org>

Christian Couder <chriscool@tuxfamily.org> writes:

Show 20 quoted lines

> Signed-off-by: Christian Couder <chriscool@tuxfamily.org>
> ---
>  Documentation/git-replace.txt | 4 +++-
>  1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
>
> diff --git a/Documentation/git-replace.txt b/Documentation/git-replace.txt
> index 736b48c..a2bd2ee 100644
> --- a/Documentation/git-replace.txt
> +++ b/Documentation/git-replace.txt
> @@ -21,10 +21,12 @@ replaced. The content of the 'replace' reference is the SHA-1 of the
>  replacement object.
>  
>  The replaced object and the replacement object must be of the same type.
> -There is no other restriction on them.
> +This restriction can be bypassed using `-f`.
>  
>  Unless `-f` is given, the 'replace' reference must not yet exist.
>  
> +There is no other restriction on the replaced and replacement objects.
> +

This is outside the scope of this topic, but I wonder if we want to restrict a replacement operation that causes a cycle in the object graph (a commit reaches itself after following its parent pointer, a tree reaches itself after looking into trees within, a tag reaches itself after following its "object" reference), and if we do want it, it is feasible to implement it.

>  Replacement references will be used by default by all Git commands
>  except those doing reachability traversal (prune, pack transfer and
>  fsck).