From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Junio C Hamano Subject: Re: why still no empty directory support in git Date: Mon, 29 Dec 2008 23:45:18 -0800 Message-ID: <7viqp25coh.fsf@gitster.siamese.dyndns.org> References: <46dff0320812291942y6aeec941k9394586621e9151b@mail.gmail.com> <3ab397d0812292128j65e2e1e1xf403a998f4653aac@mail.gmail.com> <200812300758.41988.robin.rosenberg.lists@dewire.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Cc: "Jeff Whiteside" , "Asheesh Laroia" , "Git Mailing List" To: Robin Rosenberg X-From: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Tue Dec 30 08:46:58 2008 Return-path: Envelope-to: gcvg-git-2@gmane.org Received: from vger.kernel.org ([209.132.176.167]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1LHZJY-0006J6-Qw for gcvg-git-2@gmane.org; Tue, 30 Dec 2008 08:46:57 +0100 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1751629AbYL3Hpe (ORCPT ); Tue, 30 Dec 2008 02:45:34 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1751551AbYL3Hpe (ORCPT ); Tue, 30 Dec 2008 02:45:34 -0500 Received: from a-sasl-fastnet.sasl.smtp.pobox.com ([207.106.133.19]:34901 "EHLO sasl.smtp.pobox.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751538AbYL3Hpd (ORCPT ); Tue, 30 Dec 2008 02:45:33 -0500 Received: from localhost.localdomain (unknown [127.0.0.1]) by a-sasl-fastnet.sasl.smtp.pobox.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 443548BA35; Tue, 30 Dec 2008 02:45:26 -0500 (EST) Received: from pobox.com (unknown [68.225.240.211]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by a-sasl-fastnet.sasl.smtp.pobox.com (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id C87DF8BA34; Tue, 30 Dec 2008 02:45:20 -0500 (EST) In-Reply-To: <200812300758.41988.robin.rosenberg.lists@dewire.com> (Robin Rosenberg's message of "Tue, 30 Dec 2008 07:58:41 +0100") User-Agent: Gnus/5.110006 (No Gnus v0.6) Emacs/21.4 (gnu/linux) X-Pobox-Relay-ID: D26E59EC-D645-11DD-A988-5720C92D7133-77302942!a-sasl-fastnet.pobox.com Sender: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Precedence: bulk List-ID: X-Mailing-List: git@vger.kernel.org Archived-At: Robin Rosenberg writes: > You can have an empty tree, but the index doesn't store them, so they > would be lost on checkout/commit. Linus sketched a solution, but nobody > took the bait. Seems doable if anyone really wants it, but I'm certain > it adds a lot of special cases. I think the original poster covered that "a lot of special cases" as "unclear semantics", and there are more. Do you want to have the presense of empty directory "sticky"? Perhaps it later becomes non-empty at some point; will the "will always present" attribute kept then? What happens when such a directory becomes empty later? What should happen when a branch that has such a directory with "sticky existence" and another branch with the same directory but without the stickiness are merged? But I think one bigger reason missing from the list is that many people loudly talked about "wants", but nobody made convincing argument on "needs" of such a feature.