threads / discuss / 18535

Memory of past repositories in git remote?

Subject: Memory of past repositories in git remote?

## tl;dr

4 messages between Mar 25, 2009 and Mar 25, 2009.

replies: 3people: 4as markdown or json

Christophe de Dinechin· Mar 25, 2009, 11:47 UTC · lore

I ran into a peculiar issue running git 1.6.1.2 on HP-UX: it looks like something has remembered an old repository and insists on providing that to "git fetch" instead of the new repository. Appending "/." at the end of the remote repository fixes the problem.

Here are the details. I created a git repository in /home/ddd/vmm, impored some Subversion history, and started working with that. I created a few branches, e.g. one called "perrier". Then, I realized that there was a better way to track Subversion changes, and so I moved the old repository as /home/ddd/vmm.git, and created a new one that I populated with "git svn clone svn+ssh://path/to/repot -T trunk - b branches -t users". That new repository has no branch named "perrier" in it.

Now, when I'm on another machine, create a new repository with the same "git svn clone", then do a "git remote add ddd ssh://name@mymachine/home/ddd/vmm ", I would expect to pick up the repository that is actually under / home/ddd/vmm on mymachine. But when I do a "git svn fetch", the output contains:

warning: no common commits
remote: Counting objects: 66874, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (14626/14626), done.
remote: Total 66874 (delta 51668), reused 66589 (delta 51418)
Receiving objects: 100% (66874/66874), 96.41 MiB | 187 KiB/s, done
Resolving deltas: 100% (51668/51668), done.
 From ssh://name@mymachine/home/ddd/vmm
* [new branch] perrier -> ddd/perrier
...

as well as all branches from /home/ddd/vmm.git (not /home/ddd/vmm). I tried doing an "ssh name@mymachine ls /home/ddd/vmm" to check that this was indeed the new repository. If instead of "/home/ddd/vmm", I specify "/home/ddd/vmm/.", then I do get the branches in the new repository, e.g in that case I get:

  * [new branch] tot -> ddd-good/tot

This is not just a name dependency, though, because if I specify / home/./ddd/vmm, then I get the old repository again. So what seems to matter is the dot at the end of the repository name.

I'm really puzzled by this behavior, and I have been unable to find anything in the git documentation explaining it. I tried to find references to vmm.git anywhere on either machines, but I couldn't.

This is easily reproduced, so I'm willing to run experiments to try and debug the problem.

Thanks Christophe

Santi Béjar· Mar 25, 2009, 12:05 UTC · re: Christophe de Dinechin · lore

Re: Memory of past repositories in git remote?

2009/3/25 Christophe de Dinechin <christophe.de.dinechin@gmail.com>:
Show 7 quoted lines
> Here are the details. I created a git repository in /home/ddd/vmm, impored
> some Subversion history, and started working with that. I created a few
> branches, e.g. one called "perrier". Then, I realized that there was a
> better way to track Subversion changes, and so I moved the old repository as
> /home/ddd/vmm.git, and created a new one that I populated with "git svn
> clone svn+ssh://path/to/repot -T trunk -b branches -t users". That new
> repository has no branch named "perrier" in it.

Git tries different url: $url/.git, $url.git and $url (I'm not sure about the order).

So having $url and $url.git is asking for problems. I don't know if it is documented somewhere.

HTH, Santi

Christophe de Dinechin· Mar 25, 2009, 14:51 UTC · re: Santi Béjar · lore

Re: Memory of past repositories in git remote?

Yep, that was it. I didn't realize that $url.git was being tested first.

Thanks Christophe

On 25 mars 09, at 13:05, Santi Béjar wrote:
Show 23 quoted lines
> 2009/3/25 Christophe de Dinechin <christophe.de.dinechin@gmail.com>:
>> Here are the details. I created a git repository in /home/ddd/vmm,  
>> impored
>> some Subversion history, and started working with that. I created a  
>> few
>> branches, e.g. one called "perrier". Then, I realized that there  
>> was a
>> better way to track Subversion changes, and so I moved the old  
>> repository as
>> /home/ddd/vmm.git, and created a new one that I populated with "git  
>> svn
>> clone svn+ssh://path/to/repot -T trunk -b branches -t users". That  
>> new
>> repository has no branch named "perrier" in it.
>
> Git tries different url: $url/.git, $url.git and $url (I'm not sure
> about the order).
>
> So having $url and $url.git is asking for problems. I don't know if it
> is documented somewhere.
>
> HTH,
> Santi
Michael J Gruber· Mar 25, 2009, 14:22 UTC · re: Christophe de Dinechin · lore

Re: Memory of past repositories in git remote?

Christophe de Dinechin venit, vidit, dixit 25.03.2009 12:47:
Show 48 quoted lines
> I ran into a peculiar issue running git 1.6.1.2 on HP-UX: it looks  
> like something has remembered an old repository and insists on  
> providing that to "git fetch" instead of the new repository. Appending  
> "/." at the end of the remote repository fixes the problem.
> 
> Here are the details. I created a git repository in /home/ddd/vmm,  
> impored some Subversion history, and started working with that. I  
> created a few branches, e.g. one called "perrier". Then, I realized  
> that there was a better way to track Subversion changes, and so I  
> moved the old repository as /home/ddd/vmm.git, and created a new one  
> that I populated with "git svn clone svn+ssh://path/to/repot -T trunk - 
> b branches -t users". That new repository has no branch named  
> "perrier" in it.
> 
> Now, when I'm on another machine, create a new repository with the  
> same "git svn clone", then do a "git remote add ddd ssh://name@mymachine/home/ddd/vmm 
> ", I would expect to pick up the repository that is actually under / 
> home/ddd/vmm on mymachine. But when I do a "git svn fetch", the output  
> contains:
> 
> warning: no common commits
> remote: Counting objects: 66874, done.
> remote: Compressing objects: 100% (14626/14626), done.
> remote: Total 66874 (delta 51668), reused 66589 (delta 51418)
> Receiving objects: 100% (66874/66874), 96.41 MiB | 187 KiB/s, done
> Resolving deltas: 100% (51668/51668), done.
>  From ssh://name@mymachine/home/ddd/vmm
> * [new branch] perrier -> ddd/perrier
> ...
> 
> as well as all branches from /home/ddd/vmm.git (not /home/ddd/vmm). I  
> tried doing an "ssh name@mymachine ls /home/ddd/vmm" to check that  
> this was indeed the new repository. If instead of "/home/ddd/vmm", I  
> specify "/home/ddd/vmm/.", then I do get the branches in the new  
> repository, e.g in that case I get:
> 
>   * [new branch] tot -> ddd-good/tot
> 
> This is not just a name dependency, though, because if I specify / 
> home/./ddd/vmm, then I get the old repository again. So what seems to  
> matter is the dot at the end of the repository name.
> 
> I'm really puzzled by this behavior, and I have been unable to find  
> anything in the git documentation explaining it. I tried to find  
> references to vmm.git anywhere on either machines, but I couldn't.
> 
> This is easily reproduced, so I'm willing to run experiments to try  
> and debug the problem.
Given %s, git looks for existence of "%s.git/.git",
 * "%s/.git", "%s.git", "%s" in this order. So it's intentional
behavior, not a bug.

The idea is that non-bare repos should be chosen over bare ones, and bare ones are usually named something.git. One may argue whether %s/.git should come before %s.git/.git.

Michael

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