On 10/21/2011 07:01 PM, Junio C Hamano wrote: > Michael Haggerty <mhagger@xxxxxxxxxxxx> writes: > >> Yes, you are right. Setting GIT=$(pwd)/bin-wrappers/git fixes the problem. > > So in short, this was a false alarm crying wolf, and there was no problem? Correct, it was my fault for not running the locally-compiled version of git the correct way to get consistent invocation of subprocesses. So there was no problem. ...but there arguably *is* a metaproblem, namely that the obvious naive way to invoke a locally-compiled test version of git without installing it neither works correctly nor fails loudly. It sometimes works (if the main process doesn't need to call any subprocesses), sometimes works accidentally (if the subprocess that is used happens to have the behavior expected by the test version) and sometimes fails bizarrely (as in my case and other cases recently mentioned on the mailing list). I can think of a few ugly hacks that could improve the situation: 1. Don't compile executables into the project root directory, but rather into a subdirectory named something awful like "do-not-run-commands-from-this-directory" with a big README.txt in the directory explaining how the commands *should* be run. Even knowing that one has to RTFM would be a help. 2. Include a special file like "GIT-DEV-SETUP" in the directory to which the executables are compiled, but don't copy this file to $BINDIR when git is installed. Teach git commands to check for the presence of $(dirname $0)/GIT-DEV-SETUP, and if found, do the equivalent of "exec GIT-DEV-SETUP "$@"" or maybe just read and use some values out of GIT-DEV-SETUP to set up the correct environment. There could be some environment variable like GIT_SETUP_DONE to prevent recursion and/or allow this step to be bypassed. 3. Have git commands tell git subcommands what version they are expecting (either via an environment variable or via a hidden command-line parameter), and have the subcommand barf if the version does not match its own internal version. This approach is more intrusive but would also help defend against inconsistently-installed versions (like having one version installed in /usr/bin and fragments of another version installed in $HOME/bin). Michael -- Michael Haggerty mhagger@xxxxxxxxxxxx http://softwareswirl.blogspot.com/ -- 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