Nanako Shiraishi <nanako3@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes: > Quoting Junio C Hamano <gitster@xxxxxxxxx> > >> Come back with a proof that there has never existed any script that uses >> "read-tree" without arguments to purge the index, and I'd immediately >> accept and apply the patch to retroactively forbid what the implementation >> has allowed users to do for a long time. > > For what it's worth, I compiled the very first version of git > > commit e83c5163316f89bfbde7d9ab23ca2e25604af290 > Author: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> > Date: Thu Apr 7 15:13:13 2005 -0700 > > Initial revision of "git", the information manager from hell > > and its read-tree fails with > > read-tree: read-tree <key> > > Is it a proof enough? Ok, that initial one was "read a single tree to populate the index". I consider it a fundamentally different program from "read-tree" as we know now, which was introduced by d99082e (Make "read-tree" merge the trees it reads by giving them consecutive states., 2005-04-15). Ever since that "multi-stage" version, read-tree was "starting from an empty index, read these trees into stages #1, #2, ..." And even that version called the program "read-tree", not "git read-tree". IOW, "git read-tree" never had that "no tree is an error" restriction during its entire life. Having said all that, I don't care that deeply either way myself. As read-tree is a very basic and low-level Porcelain, if somebody were using it to empty the index in an existing script, this change would appear as a regression and hopefully will be caught eventually, and updating such a script can be made reasonably easy if we want to be helpful (the error message can suggest running "rm $GIT_DIR/index", for example). -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html