Re: fatal: unable to write sha1 file git 1.6.2.1

[Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>]

On Tue, 24 Mar 2009, Peter wrote:
>
> I try to add a directory with lots of binary files to a git repository.
> I receive the error message:
> *
> fatal: unable to write sha1 file
> 
> *This is  git 1.6.2.1.
> 
> Are there limits concerning binary files ( like executables , images ) for the
> inclusion in a git repo ?

If that is the only error message you got, then afaik the only way that 
can happen is if "close(fd)" returns an error.

The only other "unable to write sha1 file" message happens if 
write_buffer() fails, but if that happens then you should also have gotten 
a

	file write error (<error message goes here>)

message in addition to the "unable to write sha1 file".

What OS? What filesystem? Are you perhaps running out of space?

You could also try to apply this patch to get more information (Junio, 
maybe worth doing regardless? We should try to avoid ambiguous error 
messages that don't give full error information)

		Linus
---
 sha1_file.c |    2 +-
 1 files changed, 1 insertions(+), 1 deletions(-)

diff --git a/sha1_file.c b/sha1_file.c
index 4563173..54972f9 100644
--- a/sha1_file.c
+++ b/sha1_file.c
@@ -2287,7 +2287,7 @@ static void close_sha1_file(int fd)
 		fsync_or_die(fd, "sha1 file");
 	fchmod(fd, 0444);
 	if (close(fd) != 0)
-		die("unable to write sha1 file");
+		die("error when closing sha1 file (%s)", strerror(errno));
 }
 
 /* Size of directory component, including the ending '/' */