# Confusing error message due to Git trusting is_bare_repository() 3 messages from 2011-03-25 to 2011-03-25. Participants: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason, Junio C Hamano, Jeff King. Thread: https://gitlist.dev/t/26860 ## Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason, 2011-03-25 10:56 Subject: Confusing error message due to Git trusting is_bare_repository() Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/AANLkTi%3D9CpMU9aZs2zuvRyv3rpECkRAvYA0Srnc61whg%40mail.gmail.com ``` I had a co-worker git this well-known error message: error: refusing to update checked out branch: refs/heads/master error: By default, updating the current branch in a non-bare repository error: is denied, because it will make the index and work tree inconsistent error: with what you pushed, and will require 'git reset --hard' to match error: the work tree to HEAD. It *was* a bare repo, but the config file had bare=false because someone had simply copied a .git tree from a non-bare repo to make it. The issue is that we just use this: int is_bare_repository(void) { /* if core.bare is not 'false', let's see if there is a work tree */ return is_bare_repository_cfg && !get_git_work_tree(); } For the purposes of the error message it would be helpful if we also detected whether something didn't have a working tree, but was set to bare=false, and tell the user to updatet he bare=false to bare=true for his almost-bare repository. ``` ## Junio C Hamano, 2011-03-25 17:57 Subject: Re: Confusing error message due to Git trusting is_bare_repository() Message-ID: <7vwrjn5bhd.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org> URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/7vwrjn5bhd.fsf%40alter.siamese.dyndns.org In-Reply-To: ``` Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason writes: > I had a co-worker git this well-known error message: > > error: refusing to update checked out branch: refs/heads/master > error: By default, updating the current branch in a non-bare repository > error: is denied, because it will make the index and work tree inconsistent > error: with what you pushed, and will require 'git reset --hard' to match > error: the work tree to HEAD. > > It *was* a bare repo, but the config file had bare=false because > someone had simply copied a .git tree from a non-bare repo to make it. > > The issue is that we just use this: > > int is_bare_repository(void) > { > /* if core.bare is not 'false', let's see if there is a work tree */ > return is_bare_repository_cfg && !get_git_work_tree(); > } > > For the purposes of the error message it would be helpful if we also > detected whether something didn't have a working tree, but was set to > bare=false, and tell the user to updatet he bare=false to bare=true > for his almost-bare repository. The only reason we have it as a config variable is because there isn't a way to make that determination. How would you propose to detect that? As a trivial and obvious example, is the result "git clone -n" a bare repository? Note that it is a perfectly valid workflow to: $ git clone -n github.com:gitster/git.git temp $ cd temp ;# no checkout, but is .git/ in it a bare repository? $ git read-tree origin/master ;# now with the index, but no checkout $ git merge origin/jc/diff-dotdot $ git show -m --first-parent to make a merge with minimum number of paths checked out in a temporary repository that should still be considered non-bare. Of course, you cannot base the determination on "do we see $GIT_DIR/index file there?" Most likely people who renamed foo/.git to foo.git and then removed foo directory didn't bother to remove foo.git/index. ``` ## Jeff King, 2011-03-25 18:25 Subject: Re: Confusing error message due to Git trusting is_bare_repository() Message-ID: <20110325182536.GC25851@sigill.intra.peff.net> URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/20110325182536.GC25851%40sigill.intra.peff.net In-Reply-To: ``` On Fri, Mar 25, 2011 at 11:56:20AM +0100, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason wrote: > I had a co-worker git this well-known error message: > > error: refusing to update checked out branch: refs/heads/master > error: By default, updating the current branch in a non-bare repository > error: is denied, because it will make the index and work tree inconsistent > error: with what you pushed, and will require 'git reset --hard' to match > error: the work tree to HEAD. > > It *was* a bare repo, but the config file had bare=false because > someone had simply copied a .git tree from a non-bare repo to make it. That seems like the problem there. I'm not blaming the user; what they expected to happen is reasonable, and even used to work. But I wonder if better education is possible. > The issue is that we just use this: > > int is_bare_repository(void) > { > /* if core.bare is not 'false', let's see if there is a work tree */ > return is_bare_repository_cfg && !get_git_work_tree(); > } > For the purposes of the error message it would be helpful if we also > detected whether something didn't have a working tree, but was set to > bare=false, and tell the user to updatet he bare=false to bare=true > for his almost-bare repository. How do we know whether or not it has a working tree? Can't I do something like: cd /var/working-trees/foo git init mv .git /var/repositories/foo.git export GIT_DIR=/var/repositories/foo.git echo content >file && git add file && git commit -m foo I thought the reason that core.bare was introduced was to handle weird cases like this. -Peff ```