Re: Are these bugs?

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

Stephan Beyer <s-beyer@gmx.net> writes:

> Junio C Hamano wrote:
> 
>> "Jay Soffian" <jaysoffian@gmail.com> writes:
>> 
>> > I understand why "git reset" failed, but at best the error message is
>> > confusing to a new user.
>> 
>> This is in "patches welcome" category.
>
> <noise>
> But I still think it's stupid.
> </noise>

Yes I think it is stupid.  The dummy commit does not change the fact that
you need to special case it anyway, and special casing you can do without
the dummy commit that will contaminate the history.  We already have such
special case for "log -p" (--root used to be optional).  If rebasing onto
emptiness is problematic, the command should be taught how.

> So, for a patch, is it sane to just remove/clear the index
> if get_sha1("HEAD", sha1) fails?

As a general idea, yes, but details matter.

If the user says "git reset [--hard/--soft/--mixed] HEAD" from the command
line, we should say "You do not even have HEAD commit".  If "git reset"
deduced (incorrectly) that the user meant HEAD, and only in that case, we
should clear the index.