On Fri, Apr 23, 2021 at 11:20:52AM +0200, Han-Wen Nienhuys wrote: > On Wed, Apr 21, 2021 at 6:55 PM Junio C Hamano <gitster@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > If there isn't, then we could do either one of these two things. > > > > (1) we could add "git reflog create <ref>" and the reftable can > > record the fact that "reflog exists for the ref, but no ref > > movement recorded yet". Then the condition C can be checked. > > > > (2) we could declare that there is no way to create an empty reflog > > supported across ref backends, and make the tests that rely on > > the "feature" conditional on REF_FILES prerequisite. > > > > I have no strong preference. In the early days I found the ability > > to limit which branches get logged convenient, so if reftable > > backend can learn the similar trick, we would want to go route (1) > > (the convenience largely came from the fact that there was no need > > to add one configuration item per branch, so I do not think we would > > want to bother with branch.<name>.reflog=bool configuration---that > > won't be an easy-to-use substitute). On the other hand, logs are > > useful, and dormant logs are not costing anything (other than holding > > onto stale objects we may no longer want), so it could be that it > > may not be as convenient as it used to be to be able to turn logs on > > only on selected refs, in which case approach (2) is fine. > > Exactly, these are the two options I outlined in my original message. > Both can be made to work. I slightly prefer 2 (empty reflogs don't > exist, and make logging a global switch), because it is simpler to > understand and document. The divergence with the files backend itself > is extra complexity, though. Maybe we could deprecate the behavior and > always write reflogs in the files backend too. Yeah, I like (2) as well. This "write a reflog if it always exists" behavior has always seemed hacky, and like a leftover from early days when we didn't just turn reflogs on by default. Given that it was documented as "touch the file", I don't see any need to pretend that it makes any sense at all in a reftables world. I'd also be perfectly happy with removing the feature on the files backend (and perhaps replacing it with a simple globbing config value, in case anybody really wants to log only some refs). I find it hard to imagine that anybody would really care, but it _is_ a backwards-incompatible change. So possibly we should do the usual deprecation thing, or wait for a major version bump. I dunno. -Peff
