Git does not recognise directory named '${sys:DATA_ROOT_DIR}'

Hello there,

While the name is obviously a mistake, git refuses to even acknowledge the directory.

``` u@h:~/$ mkdir init-test u@h:~/$ cd init-test u@h:~/init-test$ git init Initialized empty Git repository in /home/u/init-test/.git/ u@h:~/init-test$ (master #) mkdir \$\{sys\:DATA_ROOT_DIR\}/ u@h:~/init-test$ (master #) git status On branch master

No commits yet

nothing to commit (create/copy files and use "git add" to track) u@h:~/init-test$ (master #) git add .git/ ${sys:DATA_ROOT_DIR}/ u@h:~/init-test$ (master #) git add \$\{sys\:DATA_ROOT_DIR\}/ u@h:~/init-test$ (master #) git commit --signoff -m'a' On branch master

Initial commit

nothing to commit u@h:~/init-test$ (master #) ```

Is that expected?

Ντέντος Σταύρος

Hi,

On Tue, Sep 03, 2019 at 03:44:14PM +0300, Σταύρος Ντέντος wrote:

Git does not track empty trees; that is to say 'git add' on an empty directory does not change the status of the index.

Try for example:

  $ git init repo && cd repo
  $ mkdir -p dir
  $ git add dir
  $ git status

And note that 'git status' says there are no changes.

On the other hand, 'git add' performs fine even in a directory named '${sys:DATA_ROOT_DIR}'; simply create a file (even an empty one) within that directory and then run 'git add'. It will stage your "changes" as expected.

If you wish to keep this directory "empty", but stored in Git, a common convention is to create an empty '.gitkeep' file in the directory. This file is not special in any way to Git, rather it serves as _a_ file to keep the directory non-empty.

Hope this helps.

Thanks, Taylor

Hey Taylor,

This was happening on a (much) more massive repository; I simply tried to dumb down the example.

The original folder did had a folder structure 3 levels deep. Unfortunately, I don't remember if the leaves were files (or directories themselves). However, since I "replicated" it, I went ahead and cleaned up my main repo (sigh).

Thank you for reminding me of the empty-tree case :-)

(Reply-all missed the list)

On 03/09/2019 15:11, Σταύρος Ντέντος wrote:

Makes me wonder if git status could maybe warn about empty trees as 'untracked'?

Philip

Taylor Blau <me@ttaylorr.com> writes:

Hmph, I thought the common convention was to create a ".gitignore" file in the directory with catch-all pattern, so that no matter what cruft you had there "git add" will not add anything from it, if you wish to keep this directory "empty".

Well, I "suppose" git-add could warn you that you are adding an empty tree (and I'd like if that happened, implicit vs explicit action i.e. ignoring). However, I assume the no-empty-tree case was a design decision; hence, it's been 2.2# versions without such warning.

I doubt it would be considered to be added now.

On Tue, Sep 3, 2019 at 10:08 PM Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:

I believe Taylor is talking about explicitly keeping a directory empty, that may or may not, in the future, contain files (that will be tracked) [1]. You are infering that, regardless if there are files or will be added in the future, you don't want to check anything in.

While [1] is a very niche corner case (and maybe it doesn't make sense to the most of us, true), there is a "debian-equivalent" behavior https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=812223

(I cannot find the definition of this behavior, but you can see an example usecase)