Re: [PATCH 2/3] hash-object doc: elaborate on -w and --literally promises

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
To: Jakub Narebski <jnareb@gmail.com>
Cc: "Jeff King" <peff@peff.net>,
	"Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason" <avarab@gmail.com>,
	git@vger.kernel.org, "Adam Roben" <aroben@apple.com>,
	"Bryan Larsen" <bryan.larsen@gmail.com>,
	"Matthias Urlichs" <smurf@smurf.noris.de>,
	"Eric Sunshine" <sunshine@sunshineco.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 2/3] hash-object doc: elaborate on -w and --literally promises
Date: Tue, 28 May 2019 09:56:19 -0700	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <xmqq8suq4ix8.fsf@gitster-ct.c.googlers.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <86woigp3ro.fsf@gmail.com> (Jakub Narebski's message of "Fri, 24 May 2019 12:04:27 +0200")

Jakub Narebski <jnareb@gmail.com> writes:

> I thik that this implemetation detail of `--literally` is here to stay;
> how would you otherwise fix the issue if garbage object makes Git crash?

By repacking, presumably ;-).

More importantly, there needs a way to extend "enum object_type" to
allow unbounded number of arbitrary (garbage) types before we can
allow --literally to record such a garbage type in a pack stream.

So I'd expect the implementation detail would stay for a long time.
But there is nothing that says `--literally` inherently must write
loose.  It is plausible that a new implementation writes objects of
known/valid types to a pack stream, while unknown/garbage types to
loose objects.

> However, I would prefer to have options state _intent_; if there is
> legitimate need for a tool that creates loose objects, it would be
> better to have separate `--loose` option to `git hash-object` (which
> would imply `-w`, otherwise it doesn't have sense).

Yes, I very much agree with that.