Jonathan Tan <jonathantanmy@xxxxxxxxxx> writes: > As a historical note, the function now known as repo_read_object_file() > was taught the empty tree in 346245a1bb ("hard-code the empty tree > object", 2008-02-13), and the function now known as oid_object_info() > was taught the empty tree in c4d9986f5f ("sha1_object_info: examine > cached_object store too", 2011-02-07). repo_has_object_file() was never > updated, perhaps due to oversight. The flag OBJECT_INFO_SKIP_CACHED, > introduced later in dfdd4afcf9 ("sha1_file: teach > sha1_object_info_extended more flags", 2017-06-26) and used in > e83e71c5e1 ("sha1_file: refactor has_sha1_file_with_flags", 2017-06-26), > was introduced to preserve this difference in empty-tree handling, but > now it can be removed. I am not 100% sure if the implication of this change is safe to allow us to say "now it can be". The has_object_file() helper wanted to say "no" when given a non-existing object registered via the pretend_object_file(), presumably because we wanted to allow a use pattern like: - prepare an in-core representation of an object we tentatively expect, but not absolutely sure, to be necessary. - perform operations, using the object data obtained via read_object() API, which is capable of yielding data even for such "pretend" objects (perhaps we are creating a tentative merge parents during a recursive merge). - write out final set of objects by enumerating those that do not really exist yet (via has_object_file() API). Teaching about the empty tree to has_object_file() is a good thing (especially because we do not necessarily write an empty tree object to our repositories), but as a collateral damage of doing so, we make such use pattern impossible. It is not a large loss---the third bullet in the above list can just be made to unconditionally call write_object_file() without filtering with has_object_file() and write_object_file() will apply the right optimization anyway, so it probably is OK. Will queue. Thanks.