threads / discuss / 10973

Temporary directories getting errantly added into trees

Subject: Temporary directories getting errantly added into trees

## tl;dr

12 messages between Nov 22, 2007 and Nov 24, 2007.

replies: 11people: 8as markdown or json

Sam Vilain· Nov 22, 2007, 03:51 UTC · lore

I just got through a rather nasty debugging session with git-rebase, which relies on a .dotest directory. Turns out that .dotest was accidentally added to the tree in the history of the commit that was being rebased onto.

There are a lot of temporary files like that made by various scripts - eg, git-filter-branch makes .git-rewrite, etc.

I think it would be a good thing for all if you had to work very hard to put files like this in the tree, or perhaps it would be better to go through and make all the tools that create these temporary directories create them under .git instead.

Thoughts/comments? Sam.

Eric Wong· Nov 22, 2007, 07:30 UTC · re: Sam Vilain · lore

Re: Temporary directories getting errantly added into trees

Sam Vilain <sam@vilain.net> wrote:
> I just got through a rather nasty debugging session with git-rebase,
> which relies on a .dotest directory.  Turns out that .dotest was
> accidentally added to the tree in the history of the commit that was
> being rebased onto.
Hi Sam,
Ouch
Show 7 quoted lines
> There are a lot of temporary files like that made by various scripts -
> eg, git-filter-branch makes .git-rewrite, etc.
> 
> I think it would be a good thing for all if you had to work very hard to
> put files like this in the tree, or perhaps it would be better to go
> through and make all the tools that create these temporary directories
> create them under .git instead.
Polluting the working tree is definitely a bad thing to do IMNSHO.

git-rebase --merge already puts its temporary directory inside .git/.dotest-merge. I hoped to set an example with that and get more tools to do the same; but it hasn't happened yet...

-- 
Eric Wong
Jeff King· Nov 22, 2007, 10:43 UTC · re: Sam Vilain · lore

Re: Temporary directories getting errantly added into trees

On Thu, Nov 22, 2007 at 04:51:53PM +1300, Sam Vilain wrote:
> I think it would be a good thing for all if you had to work very hard to
> put files like this in the tree, or perhaps it would be better to go
> through and make all the tools that create these temporary directories
> create them under .git instead.

Personally, I think they should all go under .git with very descriptive, public names (the name ".dotest" is not really hidden from the user, and I have never really been able to make sense of it. Surely there is some more useful name?).

But I think there is the real possibility of damaging user scripts which make assumptions based on the presence of .dotest (to see if we're in a git-am or rebase session, etc). I have no idea how common such scripts are.

-Peff
Johannes Schindelin· Nov 22, 2007, 10:55 UTC · re: Sam Vilain · lore

Re: Temporary directories getting errantly added into trees

Hi,
On Thu, 22 Nov 2007, Sam Vilain wrote:
> I just got through a rather nasty debugging session with git-rebase, 
> which relies on a .dotest directory.  Turns out that .dotest was 
> accidentally added to the tree in the history of the commit that was 
> being rebased onto.

While we're at it, could we change the name so that it is .git/rebase, and not .dotest or .git/.dotest-merge?

Yes, I know, existing tools could rely on the location. But then, I do not think that tools should be allowed to be _that_ married to particular implementations. And indeed, I see no reason why a tool should access .dotest, except for accessing .dotest/patch, and then it will be very obvious where it fails.

But I don't know about QGit, StGit, etc...

Ciao, Dscho

Martin Langhoff· Nov 22, 2007, 11:01 UTC · re: Johannes Schindelin · lore

Re: Temporary directories getting errantly added into trees

On Nov 22, 2007 11:55 PM, Johannes Schindelin > While we're at it, could we change the name so that it is .git/rebase, and

> not .dotest or .git/.dotest-merge?
+1 on that
> ... And indeed, I see no reason why a tool should access
> .dotest, except for accessing .dotest/patch, and then it will be very
> obvious where it fails.

when it comes to .dotest/patch, it must be reasonably accessible. When git-am refuses to apply a patch, and I am resolving things by hand, I need it pretty handy. I also sometimes edit .dotest/msg-clean.

cheers,
m
Johannes Schindelin· Nov 22, 2007, 11:30 UTC · re: Martin Langhoff · lore

Re: Temporary directories getting errantly added into trees

Hi,
On Fri, 23 Nov 2007, Martin Langhoff wrote:
Show 9 quoted lines
> On Nov 22, 2007 11:55 PM, Johannes Schindelin
> 
> > ... And indeed, I see no reason why a tool should access .dotest, 
> > except for accessing .dotest/patch, and then it will be very obvious 
> > where it fails.
> 
> when it comes to .dotest/patch, it must be reasonably accessible. When 
> git-am refuses to apply a patch, and I am resolving things by hand, I 
> need it pretty handy. I also sometimes edit .dotest/msg-clean.
Maybe install a .dotest/ symlink for a few "git eons", i.e. some 6 months?

Although this will not work on Windows, I see not much problems in it, since Windows users are not big in scripting (at least the git type) anyway.

Ciao, Dscho

Junio C Hamano· Nov 22, 2007, 11:37 UTC · re: Martin Langhoff · lore

Re: Temporary directories getting errantly added into trees

"Martin Langhoff" <martin.langhoff@gmail.com> writes:
> when it comes to .dotest/patch, it must be reasonably accessible. When
> git-am refuses to apply a patch, and I am resolving things by hand, I
> need it pretty handy. I also sometimes edit .dotest/msg-clean.

Any serious "am" user shares the habit to edit .dotest/patch and it would be VERY painful to change this, I suspect.

I do not mind shipping .dotest in the sample templates/info--exclude file, though.

Jeff King· Nov 22, 2007, 11:16 UTC · re: Johannes Schindelin · lore

Re: Temporary directories getting errantly added into trees

On Thu, Nov 22, 2007 at 10:55:00AM +0000, Johannes Schindelin wrote:
> While we're at it, could we change the name so that it is .git/rebase, and 
> not .dotest or .git/.dotest-merge?
I totally agree.
Show 5 quoted lines
> Yes, I know, existing tools could rely on the location.  But then, I do 
> not think that tools should be allowed to be _that_ married to particular 
> implementations.  And indeed, I see no reason why a tool should access 
> .dotest, except for accessing .dotest/patch, and then it will be very 
> obvious where it fails.
Another reason might be something like:
  test -d .dotest && die "rebase or am already in progress"

which some of the git tools do, and which third party scripts might care about.

-Peff
Johannes Schindelin· Nov 22, 2007, 11:32 UTC · re: Jeff King · lore

Re: Temporary directories getting errantly added into trees

Hi.
On Thu, 22 Nov 2007, Jeff King wrote:
Show 14 quoted lines
> On Thu, Nov 22, 2007 at 10:55:00AM +0000, Johannes Schindelin wrote:
> 
> > Yes, I know, existing tools could rely on the location.  But then, I 
> > do not think that tools should be allowed to be _that_ married to 
> > particular implementations.  And indeed, I see no reason why a tool 
> > should access .dotest, except for accessing .dotest/patch, and then it 
> > will be very obvious where it fails.
> 
> Another reason might be something like:
> 
>   test -d .dotest && die "rebase or am already in progress"
> 
> which some of the git tools do, and which third party scripts might care 
> about.

Yep, for example this nice bash-completion addendum which changes the prompt according to the current repository's state.

I hope that a symlink .dotest -> .git/rebase (as I suggested in a reply to Martin) would help that, but in the long run I'd appreciate losing even that.

Ciao, Dscho

P.S.: note that even a symlink would already help the situation described by Sam.

Karl Hasselström· Nov 23, 2007, 08:21 UTC · re: Johannes Schindelin · lore

Re: Temporary directories getting errantly added into trees

On 2007-11-22 10:55:00 +0000, Johannes Schindelin wrote:
> But I don't know about QGit, StGit, etc...

I don't think StGit relies on the name of any file outside .git. (It does pollute the root of the worktree with some temp files of its own, though -- but not across invocations.)

-- 
Karl Hasselström, kha@treskal.com
      www.treskal.com/kalle
Sam Vilain· Nov 24, 2007, 00:07 UTC · re: Karl Hasselström · lore

Re: Temporary directories getting errantly added into trees

Karl Hasselström wrote:
Show 6 quoted lines
>> But I don't know about QGit, StGit, etc...
>>     
> I don't think StGit relies on the name of any file outside .git. (It
> does pollute the root of the worktree with some temp files of its own,
> though -- but not across invocations.)
>

Yes, I've had to add .tmp_msg* to my .git/info/exclude for those, too. Given nothing cares, perhaps put them under .git anyway?

Sam.
Marco Costalba· Nov 23, 2007, 14:44 UTC · re: Johannes Schindelin · lore

Re: Temporary directories getting errantly added into trees

On Nov 22, 2007 11:55 AM, Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de> wrote:

>
> But I don't know about QGit, StGit, etc...
>
QGit does not rely on .dotest or any other temporary file produced by git
Interface with git is only through git commands.

Thanks Marco

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