Re: [PATCH] Make git log work for git CWD outside of work tree

From: Duy Nguyen <pclouds@gmail.com>
To: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Cc: Danny Sauer <danny@dannysauer.com>,
	Git Mailing List <git@vger.kernel.org>,
	Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] Make git log work for git CWD outside of work tree
Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2017 19:01:00 +0700	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <CACsJy8CLBY22j3EjR4PW3n+K6PWUzb-HCgxTVeCGpwtApZF-6g@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <xmqqvaqdqfhe.fsf@gitster.mtv.corp.google.com>

On Mon, Apr 10, 2017 at 7:21 AM, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:
> If your arrangement is even more exotic, e.g. you have these two
> variables set, and then are running from OUTSIDE the working tree,
> my knee-jerk reaction is that you should get your head examined, as
> it is totally unclear what "git add foo" would mean if you did this:
>
>     $ export GIT_DIR=~/myproject/.git GIT_WORK_TREE=~/myproject
>     $ cd ~/myproject/../somewhere/else
>     $ git add foo
>
> But it should still "work" in the sense that the above command
> should notice that you are trying to add "../somewhere/else/foo" to
> the index, which is obviously nonsense, and die with a message.
>
> Similarly, if you replace "git add foo" with "git log", it still
> should work in the above, i.e.
>
>     $ export GIT_DIR=~/myproject/.git GIT_WORK_TREE=~/myproject
>     $ cd ~/myproject/../somewhere/else
>     $ git log
>
> If Git is not chdir(2)ing to ~/myproject before calling cmd_log()
> in the above (again, this is my down week so I didn't and will not
> check with the code myself), we may want to call that a bug and fix
> it, so that you do not have to do anything special to get to the
> path of ".mailmap" that is at the top-level.

The behavior is "documented" in t1510 since f3bb8b4b84 (Merge branch
'nd/setup' - 2010-12-28)

"11. When user's cwd is outside worktree, cwd remains unchanged,
    prefix is NULL."

This behavior probably started long before my topic though, mine was
more of documentation, making worktree detection more consistent. It's
the same case with defining GIT_DIR without GIT_WORK_TREE, I think:
scripts started to depend on a behavior that we did not clearly
define, by the time we knew what we wanted and we kept the old
behavior forever.

I think it's just safer to go with Johannes' suggestion.

An alternative is, when you have found out you need to read .mailmap,
you call setup_work_tree() then, which prepares the worktree for you
(including moving back to cwd) or dies if worktree does not exist, or
no-op if worktree has already been asked by somebody. Many commands do
lazy worktree initialization this way.
-- 
Duy