>> I recently discovered that "git fast-import" signals an error if used in >> a tree to which we do not have write-access, because it tries to create >> a "objects/pack/tmp_pack_XXX" file even before starting to process >> the commands. > The primary goal of fast-import is to write that packfile. It kind of > sounds like you are using the wrong tool for the job. Yes, I realize that. But in some cases it's the best tool available. `fast-import' is very close to being a "generic access API" which can be used instead of something like libgit. I think it'd be good to push it yet a bit closer. My earlier "cat-blob applied to a tree" issue is another such case. > Can you elaborate on what you are sending to fast-import (preferably > with a concrete example)? I'm sending a stream of "progress <foo>; cat-blob <foo>", basically. The concrete example is in [BuGit](https://gitlab.com/monnier/bugit), see for example https://gitlab.com/monnier/bugit/commit/3678dcb8830a9c79c6f3404d75d63e6dd07bfe4c > There may be a way to accomplish the same thing with read-only tools > like cat-file. Yes, I switched to using "cat-file --batch" instead, but it's less convenient (I can't intersperse ad-hoc info in the output, the way I can with "progress" in fast-import) and there are cases where the list of files I need to extract cannot be determined without first looking at some of those extracted files (I currently have been able to avoid this in BuGit, luckily). If I could use "cat-blob" on directories, there would be even more cases where I'd want to use fast-import for read-only operations to reduce the number of Git processes I fork. Stefan -- 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