git.vger.kernel.org archive mirror
 help / color / mirror / Atom feed
From: David Turner <dturner@twopensource.com>
To: git mailing list <git@vger.kernel.org>
Subject: RFC: optionally reject case-clone branch names
Date: Tue, 27 May 2014 18:56:08 -0400	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <1401231368.18134.63.camel@stross> (raw)

At present, it is possible to have two branches which are the same but
for case.  This works great on the case-sensitive filesystems, but not
so well on case-insensitive filesystems.  It is fairly typical to have
case-insensitive clients (Macs, say) with a case-sensitive server
(GNU/Linux).  

Should you attempt to pull on a Mac when you have case-clone branches
with differing contents, you'll get an error message containing
something like "Ref refs/remotes/origin/lower is at
[sha-of-lowercase-branch] but expected [sha-of-uppercase-branch]....
(unable to update local ref)"

Fortunately, nobody uses Macs for git servers, because on a Mac server,
if you push a branch called capital-M Master (that differs from
lowercase-m-master), nobody else can push to (lowercase-m) master until
the branch is removed.  Once the branch has been removed, it can no
longer be recreated.

I think a git client that used only packed-refs would not have any
problems with case-sensitivity of branch names, but I assume that there
are good reasons this hasn't yet been done.  At any rate, there are
plenty of older clients out there.

RFC follows:

1. On a case-insensitive server, git receive-pack ought to always reject
branches which are same-but-for-case of existing branches.
2. On a case-sensitive server, the same rule by default, with an option
to allow the old behavior.

Let me know if, should I write these patches, they would be likely to be
accepted.

             reply	other threads:[~2014-05-27 22:56 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 4+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2014-05-27 22:56 David Turner [this message]
2014-05-28 17:14 ` RFC: optionally reject case-clone branch names Junio C Hamano
2014-05-28 17:56   ` David Turner
2014-05-28 21:58     ` Junio C Hamano

Reply instructions:

You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:

* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
  and reply-to-all from there: mbox

  Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style

* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
  switches of git-send-email(1):

  git send-email \
    --in-reply-to=1401231368.18134.63.camel@stross \
    --to=dturner@twopensource.com \
    --cc=git@vger.kernel.org \
    /path/to/YOUR_REPLY

  https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html

* If your mail client supports setting the In-Reply-To header
  via mailto: links, try the mailto: link
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line before the message body.
This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox;
as well as URLs for NNTP newsgroup(s).