Bug report - Apple git

Bug report - Apple git

[André de Castro]

Thank you for filling out a Git bug report!
Please answer the following questions to help us understand your issue.

What did you do before the bug happened? (Steps to reproduce your issue)
Checked out a branch, ran "git diff --merge-base <some-annotated-tag> HEAD".

What did you expect to happen? (Expected behavior)
To see a normal git diff output.

What happened instead? (Actual behavior)
Didn't get a diff output. Got the following error instead:
"fatal: --merge-base only works with commits"

What's different between what you expected and what actually happened?
I didn't get the expected diff output and got an error message instead.

Anything else you want to add:
Seems it happens when I use a tag as one of the commits for git diff
--merge-base. This is on a macOS, with apple git.
On Windows, with Git Bash, it works as expected.

I can get this to work with "git diff --merge-base $(git rev-list -n 1
<some-annotated-tag>) HEAD".

Please review the rest of the bug report below.
You can delete any lines you don't wish to share.


[System Info]
git version:
git version 2.39.5 (Apple Git-154)
cpu: arm64
no commit associated with this build
sizeof-long: 8
sizeof-size_t: 8
shell-path: /bin/sh
feature: fsmonitor--daemon
uname: Darwin 24.2.0 Darwin Kernel Version 24.2.0: Fri Dec  6 18:56:34 PST 2024; root:xnu-11215.61.5~2/RELEASE_ARM64_T6020 arm64
compiler info: clang: 16.0.0 (clang-1600.0.26.6)
libc info: no libc information available
$SHELL (typically, interactive shell): /bin/zsh


[Enabled Hooks]
pre-push

Re: Bug report - Apple git

[Kristoffer Haugsbakk]

On Mon, Jan 13, 2025, at 15:23, André de Castro wrote:
> Checked out a branch, ran "git diff --merge-base <some-annotated-tag> HEAD".
>
> What did you expect to happen? (Expected behavior)
> To see a normal git diff output.
>
> What happened instead? (Actual behavior)
> Didn't get a diff output. Got the following error instead:
> "fatal: --merge-base only works with commits"

This works for me on version 2.48.0.  It seems to have been fixed in
2.43.0.  You would have to update to a newer version.

It looks like it was fixed in 4adceb5a299 (diff: fix --merge-base with
annotated tags, 2023-10-01).[1]  The intent of the error message was to
disallow non-commit-ish like trees:

    v2.48.0^{tree}

But it also rejected annotated tags instead of peeling them.

🔗 1: https://lore.kernel.org/git/20231001151845.3621551-1-hi@alyssa.is/

Re: Bug report - Apple git

[Torsten Bögershausen]

(Please no top-posting here)

On 2025-01-13 15:23, André de Castro wrote:
> Thank you for filling out a Git bug report!
> Please answer the following questions to help us understand your issue.
>
> What did you do before the bug happened? (Steps to reproduce your issue)
> Checked out a branch, ran "git diff --merge-base <some-annotated-tag> HEAD".
>
> What did you expect to happen? (Expected behavior)
> To see a normal git diff output.
>
> What happened instead? (Actual behavior)
> Didn't get a diff output. Got the following error instead:
> "fatal: --merge-base only works with commits"
>
> What's different between what you expected and what actually happened?
> I didn't get the expected diff output and got an error message instead.
>
> Anything else you want to add:
> Seems it happens when I use a tag as one of the commits for git diff
> --merge-base. This is on a macOS, with apple git.
> On Windows, with Git Bash, it works as expected.
>
> I can get this to work with "git diff --merge-base $(git rev-list -n 1
> <some-annotated-tag>) HEAD".
>
> Please review the rest of the bug report below.
> You can delete any lines you don't wish to share.
>
>
> [System Info]
> git version:
> git version 2.39.5 (Apple Git-154)
> cpu: arm64
> no commit associated with this build
> sizeof-long: 8
> sizeof-size_t: 8
> shell-path: /bin/sh
> feature: fsmonitor--daemon
> uname: Darwin 24.2.0 Darwin Kernel Version 24.2.0: Fri Dec  6 18:56:34 PST 2024; root:xnu-11215.61.5~2/RELEASE_ARM64_T6020 arm64
> compiler info: clang: 16.0.0 (clang-1600.0.26.6)
> libc info: no libc information available
> $SHELL (typically, interactive shell): /bin/zsh
>
>
> [Enabled Hooks]
> pre-push
>

Hm, I don't think that this group/mailing list takes responsibility
for binaries shipped by companies.

If you want, you can compile Git yourself to be "on par" with
what you find under other OS.
That is the good thing with open source - please let us know,
if help is needed.

Re: Bug report - Apple git

[André de Castro]

> This works for me on version 2.48.0.  It seems to have been fixed in
> 2.43.0.  You would have to update to a newer version.
> 
> It looks like it was fixed in 4adceb5a299 (diff: fix --merge-base with
> annotated tags, 2023-10-01).[1]  The intent of the error message was to
> disallow non-commit-ish like trees:
> 
>    v2.48.0^{tree}
> 
> But it also rejected annotated tags instead of peeling them.
> 
> 🔗 1: https://lore.kernel.org/git/20231001151845.3621551-1-hi@alyssa.is/


Indeed it works here with the homebrew version (2.48.0).

Thank you for the quick reply.

> Hm, I don't think that this group/mailing list takes responsibility
> for binaries shipped by companies.
> 
> If you want, you can compile Git yourself to be "on par" with
> what you find under other OS.
> That is the good thing with open source - please let us know,
> if help is needed.


I was unsure whether this was the right place to post. Thanks for the tip.

André de Castro

Re: Bug report - Apple git

[D. Ben Knoble]

On Mon, Jan 13, 2025 at 9:23 AM André de Castro
<aramosdecastro@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Thank you for filling out a Git bug report!
> Please answer the following questions to help us understand your issue.
>
> What did you do before the bug happened? (Steps to reproduce your issue)
> Checked out a branch, ran "git diff --merge-base <some-annotated-tag> HEAD".
>
> What did you expect to happen? (Expected behavior)
> To see a normal git diff output.
>
> What happened instead? (Actual behavior)
> Didn't get a diff output. Got the following error instead:
> "fatal: --merge-base only works with commits"
>
> What's different between what you expected and what actually happened?
> I didn't get the expected diff output and got an error message instead.
>
> Anything else you want to add:
> Seems it happens when I use a tag as one of the commits for git diff
> --merge-base. This is on a macOS, with apple git.
> On Windows, with Git Bash, it works as expected.
>
> I can get this to work with "git diff --merge-base $(git rev-list -n 1
> <some-annotated-tag>) HEAD".

A shorter workaround is probably "git diff --merge-base
<your-tag>^{commit} HEAD" (this is the "peeling" that Kristoffer
references)

>
> Please review the rest of the bug report below.
> You can delete any lines you don't wish to share.
>
>
> [System Info]
> git version:
> git version 2.39.5 (Apple Git-154)
> cpu: arm64
> no commit associated with this build
> sizeof-long: 8
> sizeof-size_t: 8
> shell-path: /bin/sh
> feature: fsmonitor--daemon
> uname: Darwin 24.2.0 Darwin Kernel Version 24.2.0: Fri Dec  6 18:56:34 PST 2024; root:xnu-11215.61.5~2/RELEASE_ARM64_T6020 arm64
> compiler info: clang: 16.0.0 (clang-1600.0.26.6)
> libc info: no libc information available
> $SHELL (typically, interactive shell): /bin/zsh
>
>
> [Enabled Hooks]
> pre-push
>
>


-- 
D. Ben Knoble

Re: Bug report - Apple git

[Junio C Hamano]

"D. Ben Knoble" <ben.knoble@gmail.com> writes:

>> What happened instead? (Actual behavior)
>> Didn't get a diff output. Got the following error instead:
>> "fatal: --merge-base only works with commits"
>> ...
> A shorter workaround is probably "git diff --merge-base
> <your-tag>^{commit} HEAD" (this is the "peeling" that Kristoffer
> references)

Thanks.  

    $ git log -S'only works with commits' ':!po/'

finds 4adceb5a (diff: fix --merge-base with annotated tags,
2023-10-01), which is v2.43.0-rc0~36^2 and v2.43 is from Nov 2023,
so this seems to be a rather ancient bug that has been already fixed
in our codebase.

The reason why I started writing this message is a bit offtopic (and
that is why Jiang is CC'ed).  We do still have that string in our
"codebase" but in po/

    $ git grep -c 'only works with commits' po/
    po/es.po:1
    po/pl.po:1
    po/pt_PT.po:1
    po/ru.po:1

I suspect there may be other strings and translations that are no
longer in use.  

Are they something we can easily remove mechanically, and if so
should we?

Thanks.