Re: Windows path handling changed between versions

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

Hi Geofrey,

On 2015-09-01 18:55, Geofrey Sanders wrote:
> I recently upgraded from Windows Git 1.6.2 to 2.5.0 and found myself
> unable to rebase. Turns out paths didn't used to be case-sensitive and
> now they are, causing a number of operations to halt. A repo created
> by pointing at the directory
>     c:\core\guidewire\Dev\2.4
> would (I suppose) technically have been invalid the whole time because
> Windows reports the current path as
>     C:\core\guidewire\Dev\2.4
> , but msys Git 1.6.2 evidently made a case-insensitive path comparison
> so the discrepancy was suppressed.

Are you sure about that? I seem to recall that `pwd` changed behavior between MSys and MSys2, but Git never made case-insensitive comparisons.

It might help me to understand what is going on if I could have preciser information. What exactly do you mean by "A repo created by pointing at ..."? Could you type out the Git commands you used?

> The proximate cause of errors was
>     git rev-parse --is-inside-work-tree
> which would output 'false' even inside the working tree.

Ah, you are apparently talking about a worktree separate from your repository?

> "--is-inside-git-dir" also printed 'false' in directories where it
> should have said 'true'.

Again, I really need preciser information about this: *How* did you end up in that directory? Did you use Git Bash or Git CMD? Did you call `cd` with a relative path, a POSIX path or a POSIX-ified full DOS path?

> I actually missed the problem in plain sight
> at first, because I created a new repo (in which everything worked as
> expected), and then did a directory diff... the worktree paths were
> different but I only noticed the names, not the case difference in the
> drive letter. More details in this SO question:
> http://stackoverflow.com/q/32280644/2835086

Please understand that I have a lot of tickets to juggle about and that it is a bit unfair to send me onto a goose chase. I would have preferred a proper GitHub issue, as the "Contribute" section of https://git-for-windows.github.io/ explicitly asks for, but I am okay with discussing this ticket on the mailing list. But studying a StackOverflow thread in addition is a bit much... next, people would ask me to search their Twitter feed for the little tid bit of information I need to help.

So please summarize that StackOverflow question, and while we are at it: StackOverflow suggests coming up with a Minimal, Complete and Verifiable Example. That would be a nice thing to have. Maybe you find it in you to come up with that MCVE.

> I was able to repair my existing repos by changing the 'worktree'
> value in gitconfig - s/c/C/ did the trick - but the whole thing was a
> surprise.
> 
> Is this a bug in the current version? Windows doesn't distinguish on
> case, so maybe applications shouldn't either.
> Was this a bug in the prior version? Maybe creating a repo with a
> worktree path that doesn't match the file system should have been an
> error from the very beginning.
> Was this user error? Maybe I did something wrong and should have known
> better, but got away with it for a while.

I think there is a good chance we can fix this, although a 1.x -> 2.x jump always suggests that certain things change in a backwards-incompatible manner.

Looking forward to more detailed information and that MCVE,
Johannes