git rebase does not understand --work-tree

Hi, list!

$ git --version git version 1.7.1.1

I often use --work-tree and --git-dir to avoid doing cd in my scripts.

However, I've found that git rebase does not understand --work-tree option (see test below). Is this fixable?

Thanks, Alexander.

mkdir tmp cd tmp git init echo "test">file.txt git add . git commit -m "initial commit"

git checkout -b other-branch echo "test2">otherfile.txt git add . git commit -m "second commit"

cd .. git --git-dir=tmp/.git --work-tree=tmp rebase other-branch

fatal: /usr/local/libexec/git-core/git-rebase cannot be used without a working tree.

Alexander Gladysh venit, vidit, dixit 14.07.2010 11:04:

In your case, omitting --work-tree almost works, as well as using "--work-tree=." (note the dot). "Almost" meaning that rebase does not complain. It just doesn't find the work-tree.

I think the main problem here is a problem with relative work trees.

First of all, work tree is meant to be relative to (the repo specified by) GIT_DIR, but that's not what "git rev-parse --top-level" is doing. Experimenting with relative --git-dir and --work-tree here shows that it's relative to cwd.

Second, several git shell commands (such as rebase) cd to the toplevel of the repo only after checking whether we are in a work tree already. This is brain dead and should be cured by the upcoming patch. With that, absolute paths for work-tree will work with rebase.

Third, git's setup code exports GIT_DIR as an absolute path but GIT_WORK_TREE as a relative path. Together with the fact that the work tree is interpreted relative to the current directory, this is doomed for failure when you cd around - as rebase does automatically!

I'm not sure I find time for the latter point, but until then the patch enables you to work with absolute paths.

Michael

Currently, "cd_to_toplevel" comes right after "require_work_tree" for these commands.

Put "cd_to_toplevel" before "require_work_tree" so that these commands do not die fatally when called with --work-tree or GIT_WORK_TREE properly set from outside of the work tree.

Signed-off-by: Michael J Gruber <git@drmicha.warpmail.net>
---
 git-am.sh     |    2 +-
 git-pull.sh   |    2 +-
 git-rebase.sh |    2 +-
 git-stash.sh  |    2 +-
 4 files changed, 4 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)