# Re: symlinked directories in refs are now unreachable

1 messages from 2005-08-15 to 2005-08-15. Participants: Matt Draisey.
Thread: https://gitlist.dev/t/1514

## Matt Draisey, 2005-08-15 08:12

Subject: Re: symlinked directories in refs are now unreachable
Message-ID: <1124093522.721.41.camel@della.draisey.ca>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/1124093522.721.41.camel%40della.draisey.ca

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On Sun, 2005-08-14 at 22:12 -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote:
> Matt Draisey <mattdraisey@sympatico.ca> writes:
> 
> > The behaviour of the symlinked in ref directories has changed from
> > earlier versions of git.  They used to be taken into account in
> > git-fsck-cache --unreachable.
> >
> > Can the previous behaviour be reinstated?
> 
> I would not have much problem accepting a patch for that; it
> would make things safer when a symlink points to a real file
> that is outside .git/refs/ that holds a pointer to a valid
> object.
> 
> Having said that, I would first like to know why you have a
> symlink there, and the real file pointed by it outside .git/refs
> hierarchy.  The core GIT tools do not create such symlinks, so
> either you are creating one by hand, or your Porcelain is
> creating one for you for whatever reason.

It is my own home-grown Porcelain that creates the symlinks.  I've
thrown together a python programme to track a nested collection of
projects.  My own programming efforts rarely exceed two or three files
per project, and don't justify there own .git/objects repository.
Still, a few projects do benefit from having their own commit history,
while the rest are tracked as one big outermost superproject of
unrelated stuff.

> I would like to know
> a use case or two to illustrate why there are symlinks pointing
> at real files outside .git/refs/ hierarchy, and how that
> arrangement is useful.

Whether or not its useful??  Hmmm.  Debatable.

I've only written a commit tool.  All the other git and cogito tools I
invoke from the outermost directory like so 

$git-cat-file commit per/Minesweeper/master

Symlinking still works here as expected.  The per directory is just
there so I don't stomp on the outermost namespace, the Minesweeper is a
symlink to the nested project's refs directory.  Symlinking seems the
natural way to do this as they only need updating when I move
subdirectories around.

P.S. $echo new-id > .git/per/Minesweeper/master is safe here --- this is
the actual behaviour I want.

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