Re: [PATCH v3 09/11] technical/shallow: describe the relationship with replace refs

[Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>]

"Philip Oakley" <philipoakley@iee.org> writes:

> Perhaps something like:
> +$GIT_DIR/shallow, and handle its contents similar to replace
> +refs (with the difference that shallow does not actually
> +create those replace refs) with the difference that shallow commits will
> +always have their parents not present.

I am not sure if there is enough similarity to replace mechanism to
mention that.  It has lines of text, each of which records a commit
object for which Git is told to pretend that it has no parent.

To those who are familiar with "graft" format, it is possible to
explain the format as "it is similar to graft", as a line with a
single commit object name tells Git to pretend that it has no parent
in the "graft" format, but because we are getting rid of graft, it
probably makes sense to just explain it without reference to replace
(which may serve a similar purpose, but is certainly very far from
"similar" as a mechanism when you explain how the contents of shallow
is handled).

    $GIT_DIR/shallow lists commit object names and tells Git to
    pretend as if they are root commits (e.g. "git log" traversal
    stops after showing them; "git fsck" does not complain saying
    the commits listed on their "parent" lines do not exist).