Jeff King venit, vidit, dixit 08.04.2011 01:15: > I investigated some odd git behavior with the EOL gitattributes today, > and I'm curious to hear what others on the list think of what git does. > In particular, index raciness means git produces non-deterministic > results in this case. > > The repo in question has a gitattributes file with "* crlf=input" (which > we would spell "eol=lf" these days, but the results are the same), but > still contains some files with mixed line endings. Which you can > reproduce with: > > git init repo && > cd repo && > { > printf 'one\n' && > printf 'two\r\n' > } >mixed && > git add mixed && > git commit -m one && > echo '* eol=lf' >.gitattributes > > Now if we run "git status" or "git diff", it will let us know that > "mixed" is modified, insofar as adding and committing it would perform > the LF conversion. > > Now we come to the first confusing behavior. Generally one would expect > the working directory to be clean after a "git reset --hard". But not > here: > > git reset --hard && > git status > > will still show "mixed" as modified. Because of course we are checking > out the version from HEAD into the index and working tree, which has the > mixed line endings. So we rewrite the identical file. > > So that kind of makes sense. But it isn't all that helpful, if I just > want to reset my working tree to something sane without making a new > commit (more on this later). > > But here's an extra helping of confusion on top. Every once in a while, > doing the reset _won't_ keep "mixed" as modified. I can trigger it > reliably by inserting an extra sleep into git: > > diff --git a/unpack-trees.c b/unpack-trees.c > index 500ebcf..735b13e 100644 > --- a/unpack-trees.c > +++ b/unpack-trees.c > @@ -223,6 +223,7 @@ static int check_updates(struct unpack_trees_options *o) > } > } > stop_progress(&progress); > + sleep(1); > if (o->update) > git_attr_set_direction(GIT_ATTR_CHECKIN, NULL); > return errs != 0; > > That puts a delay between when reset writes the "mixed" file, and when > we write out the refreshed index. So next time we look at the index > (e.g., in "status"), we will see that the "mixed" entry has up-to-date > stat information and not look at its actual contents. > > But in the original case (without the sleep), that doesn't happen. > There, we usually end up writing the file and the index in the same > second. So when status looks at the index, the "mixed" entry is racily > clean, and we actually check it again. > > So we get two different outcomes, depending on the index raciness. Which > one is right, or is it right for it to be non-deterministic? > > And one final question. Let's say I don't immediately convert this mixed > file to the correct line-endings. Instead, it persists over a large > number of commits, some of them even changing the "mixed" file but not > fixing the line endings[1]. We can simulate that with: > > mv .gitattributes tmp > echo three >>mixed && > git commit -a -m three && > mv tmp .gitattributes > > Now imagine I am somebody who has cloned this repo; the clone will tend > to end the race condition in the "clean" state, since it will often take > more than 1 second to write out all of the files (at least for a > normal-sized project). We can simulate using our sleep-patched reset: > > git reset --hard > > to get a "clean" repo. Now let's say I want to explore old history, so I > go to a detached HEAD, but using normal git, not the sleep-patched one: > > git checkout HEAD^ > > And, of course, now we think "mixed" is modified. After I'm done > exploring, I want to go back to "master", but I can't: > > $ git checkout master > error: Your local changes to the following files would be overwritten by checkout: > mixed > > What is the best way out of this situation? You can't use "reset --hard" > to fix the working tree. I guess "git checkout -f" is the best option. > > Hopefully my example made sense and was reproducible. The real repo > which triggered this puzzle was jquery. You can try: > > git clone git://github.com/jquery/jquery.git && > cd jquery && > git checkout 1.4.2 && > git checkout master > > which will fail (but may succeed racily on a slow enough machine). > Obviously they need to fix the mixed line-ending files in their repo. > But that fix would be on HEAD, and "git checkout 1.4.2" will be forever > broken. Is there a way to fix that? > > -Peff > > [1] The one thing still puzzling me about the jquery repo is how they > managed to make so many commits (including ones to mixed line ending > files) without seeing the dirty working tree state and committing it. Is > there some combination of config that makes this not happen? When did they introduce the .gitattributes file? Also, maybe they're jgit users. Michael -- 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