Re: [PATCH 3/8] Clean up work-tree handling

[Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de>]

Hi,

On Sat, 28 Jul 2007, Junio C Hamano wrote:

> Outside of a work tree, I think the only two semi-sensible behaviours 
> exist.  Either tell the user that we cannot understand what "." should 
> mean in that context and error out (IOW, "Not inside a work tree"), or 
> assume that the user meant "from the top".  So in such a case, if we do 
> not want to error out to make things more "convenient", one possibility 
> would be:
> 
>  * give empty as prefix;
> 
>  * give absolute or cwd relative path to the work tree for cdup
>    (it would not be a sequence of ../ anyway in this case).

I am happy that you agree with the way I implemented it...

> I think this is in line with the traditional behaviour when GIT_DIR is 
> explicitly given.  We assume the cwd is the toplevel, and return empty 
> prefix and empty cdup.

Yes, I want that behaviour.

> Having said that, I am not convinced that "assume toplevel outside of a 
> work tree" is a win for the end users.  If the command errors out with a 
> message telling the user that relative path does not make sense from 
> outside a work tree, the user would understand.  If the command does not 
> error out but always works relative to the toplevel without explanation, 
> it might confuse the user more until the he realizes "assume toplevel 
> outside of a work tree" is the rule that is applying to his case.

There are two reasons against that...

- it is really convenient to be able to say "git add .vimrc" (think Martin 
  Krafft's desired setup).  Let's just put some uppercase warning at the 
  side of --work-tree in git-init.txt to tell the user about the 
  behaviour.

- the implementation of "you are not in the worktree" would not be 
  elegant: "git log" should succeed, "git log dir/file" should not.

Ciao,
Dscho