Re: [PATCH] RFC Optionally handle symbolic links as copies

[Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>]

Robin Rosenberg <robin.rosenberg@dewire.com> writes:

> If core.symlinks is set to copy then symbolic links in a git repository
> will be checked out as copies of the file it points to.

That all sounds nice on surface when the primary thing you care
about is to fetch and check out other people's code and extract it
to the working tree, but how well would that work on the checkin
side?  What happens if I check out a symlink that points at a file
(either in-tree or out-of-tree), make some changes that do not
involve the symlink, and before I make the commit, an unrelated
change is made to the file the symlink is pointing at?

> - git status - when do we report a diff. 
> 	- After checkout we should probably not
> 	- if the "linked" files change?

Yeah, exactly.

> 	- if a change in the copied directory chsnges

That, too.

> 	- if a file in the copied diretory is added/removed
> 	- update, should we update the copied structure automatically
> 	  when the link target changes

I personally do not think this is worth it.  It would be very useful
on the export/checkout side, so it may make sense to add it to "git
archive", though.