Storing notes refs outside of refs/

  Every push to our server creates a note at .git/refs/notes/p4notes 
with the equivalent Perforce changelist number, so Git-controlled code 
and Perforce-controlled content can stay in sync.

gitk --all and Git Extensions (out of box) show all entries in the .git/refs/. The p4notes entries are intermixed with the regular branch content. This creates a HORRID visual mess.

I tried manually moving .git/refs/notes/p4notes to .git/p4/p4notes.

"git log --show-notes=p4/p4notes" fails, but assigning core.notesDisplayRef=p4/p4notes succeeds.

The best part is, the refs/* namespace is no longer cluttered with junk!

However, "git push origin p4/p4notes:p4/p4notes" fails with the error: Unable to push to unqualified destination: p4/p4notes. The destination refspec neither matches an existing ref on the remote nor begins with refs/, and we are unable to guess a prefix based on the source ref.

Is there a way to make the "git push" work?

Thanks!

Josh

Joshua Jensen <jjensen@workspacewhiz.com> writes:

Bad idea.  Your notes no longer are protected from fsck and prune.

Don't do it.

  ----- Original Message -----
From: Junio C Hamano
Date: 8/26/2010 11:05 AM

And had I thought for longer than 1 minute about it, I would have realized that.

Okay then...

gitk --all --not --glob=refs/notes/*

does not work. Is there a way to make it work? I think, from another conversation asking a different (but related) question, the answer is no.

Josh

Joshua Jensen <jjensen@workspacewhiz.com> writes:

I don't think --not there is a good idea because "--not" in rev-list parameter means "not reachable from the following commits".

It may be useful if you made "--all --glob=!refs/notes/*" to work, though. I could picture myself buying such a change.

Or just use "--branches --tags" instead, perhaps?

  ----- Original Message -----
From: Junio C Hamano
Date: 8/26/2010 12:54 PM

Okay.  I've not used it before.

gitk --branches --remotes --tags is long to type. (Let's ignore git aliases for the moment.)

The deal is, refs/notes/ showing in git log --all serves no purpose, in my opinion. If it does for somebody else, I'd love to hear.

What if there was a configuration setting applied to 'git log --all' as a filter for refs I never want to see in the --all view?

git config --add core.logfilter refs/notes/* git config --add core.logfilter refs/game-p4/*

I also like the negated --glob syntax you showed above.

Another possibly useful idea is an extra 'git log' parameter --brt (for --branches, --remotes, --tags).

Thoughts? I'll see if I can find some time to work on something once I have a bit of direction.

Josh

On 8/26/10 7:05 PM, Junio C Hamano wrote:

Hm, so storing no longer needed branches outside of the refs/heads namespace (so that they don't show up in git branch) is a bad idea? This suggestion was made in #git today or yesterday and I'd like to know if I should advise people against doing that.

tom

Heya,

On Thu, Aug 26, 2010 at 13:47, Tomas Carnecky <tom@dbservice.com> wrote:

You can store them outside refs/heads just fine, as long as they're somewhere under refs. For example, refs/attic/ would be perfectly safe.

On 8/26/10 8:51 PM, Sverre Rabbelier wrote:

Ah, I missed that Joshua wants to put them outside of .git/refs (.git/p4). Slight but important difference :)

tom