threads / discuss / 56488

git tag -h fatal error with global tag.sort config

Subject: git tag -h fatal error with global tag.sort config

## tl;dr

5 messages between Sep 12, 2021 and Oct 18, 2021.

replies: 4people: 3as markdown or json

Bagas Sanjaya· Sep 12, 2021, 11:28 UTC · lore

Hi,

I stumbled on Debian bug report [1], and I can reproduce the bug.

In global config (~/.gitconfig), I set:

```
[tag]
	sort = creatordate
```

When I run `git tag -h` inside a Git repository (such as git.git), instead of usage summary, I got:

``` fatal: not a git repository, but the field 'creatordate' requires access to object data ```

But plain `git tag` works fine.

This bug occurs on v2.33.0 as well as version in the original bug report (v2.26.0-rc2) and v2.25.1.

[1]: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=954811

-- 
An old man doll... just what I always wanted! - Clara

SZEDER Gábor· Sep 12, 2021, 13:27 UTC · re: Bagas Sanjaya · lore

Re: git tag -h fatal error with global tag.sort config

On Sun, Sep 12, 2021 at 06:28:54PM +0700, Bagas Sanjaya wrote:

Show 23 quoted lines

> I stumbled on Debian bug report [1], and I can reproduce the bug.
> 
> In global config (~/.gitconfig), I set:
> 
> ```
> [tag]
> 	sort = creatordate
> ```
> 
> When I run `git tag -h` inside a Git repository (such as git.git), instead
> of usage summary, I got:
> 
> ```
> fatal: not a git repository, but the field 'creatordate' requires access to
> object data
> ```
> 
> But plain `git tag` works fine.
> 
> This bug occurs on v2.33.0 as well as version in the original bug report
> (v2.26.0-rc2) and v2.25.1.
> 
> [1]: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=954811

Interesting. It bisects to 47bd3d0c14 (ref-filter: don't look for objects when outside of a repository, 2018-11-14), which, based on the error message, kind of makes sense, because 'git tag' uses the general ref-filter sorting facility. Now, even if 'git tag -h' is executed in a repository, since 99caeed05d (Let 'git <command> -h' show usage without a git dir, 2009-11-09) run_builtin() special-cases the '-h' option and does not call setup_git_directory(), so cmd_tag() and everything invoked from within will mistakenly think that there is no repository. And cmd_tag() parses the config before parsing the options (of course, otherwise command line options couldn't override the config), so it hits this die() before parse_options would get a change to act on the '-h' option.

Now, 'git branch' uses the same ref-filter sorting, but the equivalent 'git -c branch.sort=creatordate branch -h' command does show the usage as expected. The relevant difference between cmd_branch() and cmd_tag() is that the former special-cases the '-h' option as well just before it would call git_config(). Doing the same in cmd_tag() like in the patch below seems to fix this issue, but I'm not sure that this is the right fix.

  ---  >8  ---

diff --git a/builtin/tag.c b/builtin/tag.c
index 065b6bf093..31b8cc4600 100644
--- a/builtin/tag.c
+++ b/builtin/tag.c
@@ -485,6 +485,9 @@ int cmd_tag(int argc, const char **argv, const char *prefix)
 
 	setup_ref_filter_porcelain_msg();
 
+	if (argc == 2 && !strcmp(argv[1], "-h"))
+		usage_with_options(git_tag_usage, options);
+
 	git_config(git_tag_config, sorting_tail);
 
 	memset(&opt, 0, sizeof(opt));

Jeff King· Sep 12, 2021, 21:39 UTC · re: SZEDER Gábor · lore

Re: git tag -h fatal error with global tag.sort config

On Sun, Sep 12, 2021 at 03:27:57PM +0200, SZEDER Gábor wrote:

Show 38 quoted lines

> Interesting.  It bisects to 47bd3d0c14 (ref-filter: don't look for
> objects when outside of a repository, 2018-11-14), which, based on the
> error message, kind of makes sense, because 'git tag' uses the general
> ref-filter sorting facility.  Now, even if 'git tag -h' is executed in
> a repository, since 99caeed05d (Let 'git <command> -h' show usage
> without a git dir, 2009-11-09) run_builtin() special-cases the '-h'
> option and does not call setup_git_directory(), so cmd_tag() and
> everything invoked from within will mistakenly think that there is no
> repository.  And cmd_tag() parses the config before parsing the
> options (of course, otherwise command line options couldn't override
> the config), so it hits this die() before parse_options would get a
> change to act on the '-h' option.
> 
> Now, 'git branch' uses the same ref-filter sorting, but the equivalent
> 'git -c branch.sort=creatordate branch -h' command does show the usage
> as expected.  The relevant difference between cmd_branch() and
> cmd_tag() is that the former special-cases the '-h' option as well
> just before it would call git_config().  Doing the same in cmd_tag()
> like in the patch below seems to fix this issue, but I'm not sure that
> this is the right fix.
> 
> 
>   ---  >8  ---
> 
> diff --git a/builtin/tag.c b/builtin/tag.c
> index 065b6bf093..31b8cc4600 100644
> --- a/builtin/tag.c
> +++ b/builtin/tag.c
> @@ -485,6 +485,9 @@ int cmd_tag(int argc, const char **argv, const char *prefix)
>  
>  	setup_ref_filter_porcelain_msg();
>  
> +	if (argc == 2 && !strcmp(argv[1], "-h"))
> +		usage_with_options(git_tag_usage, options);
> +
>  	git_config(git_tag_config, sorting_tail);
>  
>  	memset(&opt, 0, sizeof(opt));

I think part of the problem is that git_tag_config() is pretty eager to parse the ref format. You can similarly see:

  $ git -c tag.sort=foobar tag -h
  fatal: unknown field name: foobar

If git_tag_config() just kept strings, and then we later fed them to a parser (when we knew they were needed), that would be an appropriate time to bail.

We do something similar with verify_ref_format(); it is just a string until we know we are ready to use it. But here, the format that is being used for sorting gets fed early to parse_ref_sorting(). I guess it is a bit more complicated, because it is generating a linked list. But maybe it could generate a list of to-be-parsed entries, with a function like verify_sort_format() to validate them.

-Peff

Bagas Sanjaya· Sep 13, 2021, 04:37 UTC · re: SZEDER Gábor · lore

Re: git tag -h fatal error with global tag.sort config

On 12/09/21 20.27, SZEDER Gábor wrote:

Show 7 quoted lines

> Now, 'git branch' uses the same ref-filter sorting, but the equivalent
> 'git -c branch.sort=creatordate branch -h' command does show the usage
> as expected.  The relevant difference between cmd_branch() and
> cmd_tag() is that the former special-cases the '-h' option as well
> just before it would call git_config().  Doing the same in cmd_tag()
> like in the patch below seems to fix this issue, but I'm not sure that
> this is the right fix.

Also note: specifying the config above as local config (in .git/config) doesn't trigger the error.

-- 
An old man doll... just what I always wanted! - Clara

Bagas Sanjaya· Oct 18, 2021, 05:24 UTC · re: SZEDER Gábor · lore

Re: git tag -h fatal error with global tag.sort config

On 12/09/21 20.27, SZEDER Gábor wrote:

Show 39 quoted lines

> Interesting.  It bisects to 47bd3d0c14 (ref-filter: don't look for
> objects when outside of a repository, 2018-11-14), which, based on the
> error message, kind of makes sense, because 'git tag' uses the general
> ref-filter sorting facility.  Now, even if 'git tag -h' is executed in
> a repository, since 99caeed05d (Let 'git <command> -h' show usage
> without a git dir, 2009-11-09) run_builtin() special-cases the '-h'
> option and does not call setup_git_directory(), so cmd_tag() and
> everything invoked from within will mistakenly think that there is no
> repository.  And cmd_tag() parses the config before parsing the
> options (of course, otherwise command line options couldn't override
> the config), so it hits this die() before parse_options would get a
> change to act on the '-h' option.
> 
> Now, 'git branch' uses the same ref-filter sorting, but the equivalent
> 'git -c branch.sort=creatordate branch -h' command does show the usage
> as expected.  The relevant difference between cmd_branch() and
> cmd_tag() is that the former special-cases the '-h' option as well
> just before it would call git_config().  Doing the same in cmd_tag()
> like in the patch below seems to fix this issue, but I'm not sure that
> this is the right fix.
> 
> 
>    ---  >8  ---
> 
> diff --git a/builtin/tag.c b/builtin/tag.c
> index 065b6bf093..31b8cc4600 100644
> --- a/builtin/tag.c
> +++ b/builtin/tag.c
> @@ -485,6 +485,9 @@ int cmd_tag(int argc, const char **argv, const char *prefix)
>   
>   	setup_ref_filter_porcelain_msg();
>   
> +	if (argc == 2 && !strcmp(argv[1], "-h"))
> +		usage_with_options(git_tag_usage, options);
> +
>   	git_config(git_tag_config, sorting_tail);
>   
>   	memset(&opt, 0, sizeof(opt));
>

Sorry for long reply.

Patch applied and usage help appears.

But when I do `./bin-wrappers/git tag -h`, I don't see `usage:` header, and instead show the help starting from `-F`.

-- 
An old man doll... just what I always wanted! - Clara