[BUG?]: unpack-file behavior for blobs corresponding to symlinks

> Hi,
>
> unpack-file doesn't create symlinks as I'd expect.  I'm not sure if
> this is a bug in unpack-file, or in my expectations.
>
> To reproduce:
>
> $ git init
> Initialized empty Git repository in /home/newren/testing/.git/
> $ echo bla > bar
> $ ln -s bar foo
> $ git add bar foo
> $ git ls-files -s foo
> 120000 ba0e162e1c47469e3fe4b393a8bf8c569f302116 0       foo
> $ git unpack-file ba0e162e1c47469e3fe4b393a8bf8c569f302116
> .merge_file_J1hTaV
> $ ls -l foo .merge_file_J1hTaV
> lrwxrwxrwx  1 enewren enewren 3 Sep 19 08:22 foo -> bar
> -rw-------  1 enewren enewren 3 Sep 19 08:23 .merge_file_J1hTaV
> $ echo $(cat .merge_file_J1hTaV)
> bar
>
> Why is .merge_file_J1hTaV a regular file instead of a symlink?  Is
> there an alternative command I can use that would create a symlink to
> bar given the information I have from the git ls-files command (and
> which also works for creating normal files and other special file
> types)?

> This is not a bug. The type of a file is in the tree, not the blob, see:
>
> % echo -n foo > file
> % ln -s foo symlink
> % git add file symlink
> % git commit
> Created initial commit 31ad9b0 on master: file and symlink
>  2 files changed, 2 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
>  create mode 100644 file
>  create mode 120000 symlink
> % git ls-tree HEAD
> 100644 blob 19102815663d23f8b75a47e7a01965dcdc96468c    file
> 120000 blob 19102815663d23f8b75a47e7a01965dcdc96468c    symlink

> On Fri, Sep 19, 2008 at 8:51 AM, Mikael Magnusson <mikachu@gmail.com> wrote:
>> This is not a bug. The type of a file is in the tree, not the blob, see:
>>
>> % echo -n foo > file
>> % ln -s foo symlink
>> % git add file symlink
>> % git commit
>> Created initial commit 31ad9b0 on master: file and symlink
>>  2 files changed, 2 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
>>  create mode 100644 file
>>  create mode 120000 symlink
>> % git ls-tree HEAD
>> 100644 blob 19102815663d23f8b75a47e7a01965dcdc96468c    file
>> 120000 blob 19102815663d23f8b75a47e7a01965dcdc96468c    symlink
>
> Good to know.  Given the mode (100644 or 120000) and the sha1sum, is
> there a git command that will create-my-file for me,...