When check_leading_path notices a file in the way of a new entry to be checked out, verify_absent uses (1) the mode to determine whether it is a directory (2) the rest of the stat information to check if this is actually an old entry, disguised by a change in filename (e.g., README -> Readme) that is significant to git but insignificant to the underlying filesystem. If lstat fails, these checks are performed with an uninitialied stat structure, producing essentially random results. Better to just error out when lstat fails. The easiest way to reproduce this is to remove a file after the check_leading_path call and before the lstat in verify_absent. An lstat failure other than ENOENT in check_leading_path would also trigger the same code path. Signed-off-by: Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@xxxxxxxxx> --- unpack-trees.c | 4 +++- 1 files changed, 3 insertions(+), 1 deletions(-) diff --git a/unpack-trees.c b/unpack-trees.c index a795db5..9c3fe64 100644 --- a/unpack-trees.c +++ b/unpack-trees.c @@ -1374,7 +1374,9 @@ static int verify_absent_1(struct cache_entry *ce, char path[PATH_MAX + 1]; memcpy(path, ce->name, len); path[len] = 0; - lstat(path, &st); + if (lstat(path, &st)) + return error("cannot stat '%s': %s", path, + strerror(errno)); return check_ok_to_remove(path, len, DT_UNKNOWN, NULL, &st, error_type, o); -- 1.7.4.rc1 -- 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