Re: [PATCH] git rev-parse: Fix --show-cdup inside symlinked directory

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

Hi,

On Tue, 15 Jul 2008, Petr Baudis wrote:

> Consider the scenario when someone makes a symlink into a working tree
> subdirectory at an unrelated place, then attempts to work inside the
> symlinked directory. The scenario is a bit unwieldly, but most of
> the Git will handle it fine - except git rev-parse --show-cdup. That
> will output a sequence of ../ which will work wrong inside the symlink
> using shell cd builtin.

Short version: do not use symlinks in the working directory, if you do not 
want to track the _symlink_.

Long version: there are a lot of problems with that, and --show-cdup is 
the least of the problems.  A checkout, for example, is able to kill the 
symlink and check out a fresh copy of the subdirectory.

AFAICT this is a concious decision: If you want to track a symlink, track 
a symlink, but if you want to track a subdirectory, you will have to track 
a subdirectory, and it cannot be a symlink.

> This patch changes --show-cdup to always show absolute workdir path
> instead. I think this should hopefully cause no compatibility problems;
> the testsuite is passing fine, at least.

See the thread where I proposed a change like this, back with the infamous 
worktree desaster, and Junio NACKed; or the thread where Linus rightfully 
insists that git_dir should be relative if possible, for performance 
reasons.

Hth,
Dscho