threads / bug / 40830

[BUG] --bare is ignored before command word

Subject: [BUG] --bare is ignored before command word

## tl;dr

5 messages between Nov 18, 2015 and Nov 20, 2015.

replies: 4people: 4as markdown or json

Ronny Borchert· Nov 18, 2015, 17:20 UTC · lore

I was trying to clone a bare repository. Not sure why I did, maybe description on website was wrong. My try:

git --bare clone https://github.....

This was leading in creating a none bare repository! No error or warning message here! I guess this behavior is also for other --xxx commands.

Jacob Keller· Nov 18, 2015, 20:08 UTC · re: Ronny Borchert · lore

Re: [BUG] --bare is ignored before command word

On Wed, Nov 18, 2015 at 9:20 AM, Ronny Borchert <mister_rs@web.de> wrote:

Show 10 quoted lines

> I was trying to clone a bare repository. Not sure why I did, maybe
> description on website was wrong.
> My try:
>
> git --bare clone https://github.....
>
> This was leading in creating a none bare repository! No error or warning
> message here!
> I guess this behavior is also for other --xxx commands.
>

This is how the git options work. Options before a command word are always ignored. It may be better to warn about these options though, so that they don't cause errors? The reasoning this is done is because options between git and its command word are used to modify general git behavior, while options after the command word modify each specific command in their own way.

Regards, Jake

Matthieu Moy· Nov 18, 2015, 21:29 UTC · re: Jacob Keller · lore

Re: [BUG] --bare is ignored before command word

Jacob Keller <jacob.keller@gmail.com> writes:

Show 14 quoted lines

> On Wed, Nov 18, 2015 at 9:20 AM, Ronny Borchert <mister_rs@web.de> wrote:
>> I was trying to clone a bare repository. Not sure why I did, maybe
>> description on website was wrong.
>> My try:
>>
>> git --bare clone https://github.....
>>
>> This was leading in creating a none bare repository! No error or warning
>> message here!
>> I guess this behavior is also for other --xxx commands.
>>
>
> This is how the git options work. Options before a command word are
> always ignored.

No, they are not ignored. For example

$ git --foobar init Unknown option: --foobar

=> the option is processed, and rejected explicitly.

But as you say, options before the command word apply to "git", not to the particular command. The case of --bare is a bit unfortunate: both "git" and "git clone" accept a --bare option, with a different meaning (read "man git" to find what the first does).

So, I wouldn't call the current behavior a really good one, but it's the documented behavior.

It would be nice to warn in this case though: I don't see any use for "git --bare clone".

-- 
Matthieu Moy
http://www-verimag.imag.fr/~moy/

Jeff King· Nov 19, 2015, 04:46 UTC · re: Matthieu Moy · lore

Re: [BUG] --bare is ignored before command word

On Wed, Nov 18, 2015 at 10:29:20PM +0100, Matthieu Moy wrote:

Show 10 quoted lines

> But as you say, options before the command word apply to "git", not to
> the particular command. The case of --bare is a bit unfortunate: both
> "git" and "git clone" accept a --bare option, with a different meaning
> (read "man git" to find what the first does).
> 
> So, I wouldn't call the current behavior a really good one, but it's the
> documented behavior.
> 
> It would be nice to warn in this case though: I don't see any use for
> "git --bare clone".

We have a similar situation for "git init". Once upon a time there was just "git --bare init", and then 74d3b23 (git-init: accept --bare option, 2008-05-28) let us do it either way.

I'm tempted to say that "git --bare clone" should work the same way. Both init and clone are special in that they are always about creating a new repository, not working in an existing one. That's technically a non-compatible behavior change, but AFAICT with the current code the option is silently ignored, which just seems buggy.

But perhaps I am missing some useful effect it does have.

I'd also be OK with simply flagging it as useless and issuing a warning or error.

-Peff

Matthieu Moy· Nov 20, 2015, 14:52 UTC · re: Jeff King · lore

Re: [BUG] --bare is ignored before command word

Jeff King <peff@peff.net> writes:

Show 22 quoted lines

> On Wed, Nov 18, 2015 at 10:29:20PM +0100, Matthieu Moy wrote:
>
>> But as you say, options before the command word apply to "git", not to
>> the particular command. The case of --bare is a bit unfortunate: both
>> "git" and "git clone" accept a --bare option, with a different meaning
>> (read "man git" to find what the first does).
>> 
>> So, I wouldn't call the current behavior a really good one, but it's the
>> documented behavior.
>> 
>> It would be nice to warn in this case though: I don't see any use for
>> "git --bare clone".
>
> We have a similar situation for "git init". Once upon a time there was
> just "git --bare init", and then 74d3b23 (git-init: accept --bare
> option, 2008-05-28) let us do it either way.
>
> I'm tempted to say that "git --bare clone" should work the same way.
> Both init and clone are special in that they are always about creating a
> new repository, not working in an existing one.  That's technically a
> non-compatible behavior change, but AFAICT with the current code the
> option is silently ignored, which just seems buggy.

I agree with this. I can't see a real use-case "git --bare clone" so it could imply "git clone --bare".

-- 
Matthieu Moy
http://www-verimag.imag.fr/~moy/