Hi Duy, On Sat, 9 Jul 2016, Duy Nguyen wrote: > On Sat, Jul 9, 2016 at 4:09 PM, Josh Triplett <josh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > On Sat, Jul 09, 2016 at 09:35:24AM +0200, Johannes Schindelin wrote: > >> On Fri, 8 Jul 2016, Junio C Hamano wrote: > >> > Josh Triplett <josh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes: > >> > > >> > > That sounds reasonable. And if they *do* end up taking any time to > >> > > traverse, it's because they weren't reachable from other anchoring > >> > > points, so taking the extra time to traverse them seems fine. > >> > > >> > The only thing that is hard is to clearly define _what_ are the new > >> > anchoring points. > >> > > >> > It cannot be "anything directly under .git that has all-caps name > >> > that ends with _HEAD". The ones we write we know are going to be > >> > removed at some point in time (e.g. "git reset", "git bisect reset", > >> > "git merge --abort", etc.). We do not have any control on random > >> > ones that the users and third-party tools leave behind, holding onto > >> > irrelevant objects forever. > >> > >> Please note that bisect already uses the (transient) refs/bisect/ > >> namespace. So I do not think we need to take specific care of the > >> BISECT_* files. > >> > >> If we had thought of it back then, we could have used such a transient > >> namespace also for FETCH_HEAD, CHERRY_PICK_HEAD and also for detached > >> HEADs (which we should have called "unnamed branches"). > >> > >> Now, how about special-casing *just* these legacy files in gc: HEAD, > >> FETCH_HEAD, MERGE_HEAD and CHERRY_PICK_HEAD? Any new transient refs should > >> live in the refs/ namespace, which is already handled. > > > > That seems workable as well; in that case, we should also document this > > (in the git-gc manpage at a minimum), and explicitly suggest creating > > refs in refs/ but outside of refs/heads/ and refs/tags/, rather than > > directly in .git/. > > Not just outside refs/heads and refs/tags. It has to be in a specified > namespace like refs/worktree/ or something (we are close to be ready > for that). We could update the man page about git-gc shortcomings now, > but I think we should wait until refs/worktree (or something like > that) becomes true before suggesting more. We have a precedent for a ref that is directly underneath refs/: refs/stash. IMO that is okay: depending on the use case, we would need multiple refs (like refs/notes/*) or a single ref (like refs/stash). The important part is that the new refs start with refs/, and if they are to be transient, start neither with refs/heads/ nor with refs/tags/. Ciao, Dscho -- 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