Elijah Newren <newren@xxxxxxxxx> writes: >> $ # uses HEAD~1 instead of refs/heads/master >> $ git fast-export HEAD~1 >> >> blob >> mark :1 >> data 0 >> >> reset HEAD~1 >> commit HEAD~1 > > Thanks for the report. It turns out this bug has been reported and is > in the testsuite as t9350.19 -- currently marked as expected to fail. > I looked at the problem a couple years ago for a little bit but never > finished that particular patch and never got back around to it. What _should_ be the right behaviour to begin with, I have to wonder. Even though it is very clear that the set of objects that are exported are defined by the "rev-list arguments" given to the command, I do not think fast-export's semantics is not clearly defined as to what "refs" are to be updated. The easiest fix for this issue would be to forbid "git fast-export HEAD~1" (or any range whose positive endpoints are _not_ refs), and I think that would be in line with the original motivation of the command to export the whole repository in a format fast-import would understand. The original f2dc849 (Add 'git fast-export', the sister of 'git fast-import', 2007-12-02) says "This program dumps (parts of) a git repository...", implying that partial export is within the scope of the command, but I do not think it was designed carefully enough to deal with ranges more complex than just "a set of branches". I however have a feeling that people would want to say: - I want to export up to that commit, and have that commit on this branch on the importing side; or even better - I want to export up to that commit, but what refs points at the commits contained in the output stream will be decided when the output is imported. I do not think the latter meshes well with how "fast-import" works, though. But fast-export should be fixable to allow the former without breaking the semantics of fast-import. You can think of "fast-export" an off-line "push" command [*1*]; instead of giving a random commit object, e.g. "git fast-export HEAD~1", that can not be used as a ref, you can use the refspec notation to tell where the result should go, e.g. "git fast-export HEAD~1:refs/heads/a-bit-older", from the command line of fast-export. I suspect that also may clarify what Sverre was trying to do in his recent series. The root cause of both this and the issue Sverre wanted to fix is the design mistake of fast-export that tries to reuse the notation of object range specification for a different purpose of telling which "ref" to update, I think. [Footnote] *1* In a similar sense, unpacking "git bundle" output is an off-line "fetch"; the bundle creator gave anchor points for tip objects, and allows the unpacker to map them into its own namespace. -- 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