Junio C Hamano <gitster@xxxxxxxxx> writes:
> Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@xxxxxx> writes:
>
>>> > + if (type != OBJ_BLOB) {
>>> > + free(*buf);
>>> > + return error(_("blob expected for %s '%s'"),
>>> > + sha1_to_hex(sha1), path);
>>> > + }
>>> > + if (S_ISREG(mode)) {
>>> > + struct strbuf strbuf = STRBUF_INIT;
>>> > + if (convert_to_working_tree(path, *buf, *size, &strbuf)) {
>>> > + free(*buf);
>>> > + *size = strbuf.len;
>>> > + *buf = strbuf_detach(&strbuf, NULL);
>>> > + }
>>> > + }
>>>
>>> This needs to error out when mode is not ISREG just like it errors
>>> out when type is not BLOB.
>>
>> Are you sure that this is desirable in batch mode?
>
> I do not quite see a reason why we should not diagnose a bad input
> that does not produce a filtered result. In batch mode or not, it
> diagnoses when the user feeds it a non-blob, and I think it should
> do so for non-regular, too. Both are "you asked me to filter, but
> you shouldn't have".
Stepping back a bit, I can also see a use case that would be helped
if this filter_object() function by default gives the contents of
the requested object as-is, unless the object is a regular blob with
a path for which filtering is defined. Driving such a mechanism via
the batch interface will allow you to first ask about the top-level
tree object (given back to you as-is), and you can iterate over its
entries recursively and get the blobs to be placed in a new working
directory (i.e. "git archive" piped to "tar xf" but regular files
are passed thru convert_to_working_tree()). In such an application,
after you learn the mode from the containing tree object and know
that RelNotes is a symbolic link blob, you still would want the
contents out of the pipe going to the same batch interface process
that is not filtered.
So I would not mind if we define the semantics of "--filters" as
such (as long as it is clearly documented, of course). AFAICS, the
batch interface does not call filter_object() for non-blobs, and by
returning successfully without doing anything special for a symbolic
link from filter_object() automatically gives us the "by default
return as-is, but give processed output only for regular file blobs"
semantics to the batch mode.
But for a non-batch mode, it feels somewhat funny to be giving the
as-is output without saying anything to symbolic links; we can argue
that it is being consistent with what we do in the batch mode,
though.
Thanks.