How de-duplicate similar repositories with alternates

How de-duplicate similar repositories with alternates

[Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason]

A co-worker asked me today how space could be saved when you have
multiple checkouts of the same repository (at different revs) on the
same machine. I said since these won't block-level de-duplicate well[1]
one way to do this is with alternates.

However, once you have an existing clone I didn't know how to get the
gains without a full re-clone, but I hadn't looked deeply into it. As it
turns out I'm wrong about that, which I found when writing the following
test-case which shows that it works:

    (
        cd /tmp &&
        rm -rf /tmp/git-{master,pu,pu-alt}.git &&

        # Normal clones
        git clone --bare --no-tags --single-branch --branch master https://github.com/git/git.git /tmp/git-master.git &&
        git clone --bare --no-tags --single-branch --branch pu https://github.com/git/git.git /tmp/git-pu.git &&

        # An 'alternate' clone using 'master' objects from another repo
        git --bare init /tmp/git-pu-alt.git &&
        for git in git-pu.git git-pu-alt.git
        do
            echo /tmp/git-master.git/objects >/tmp/$git/objects/info/alternates
        done &&
        git -C git-pu-alt.git fetch --no-tags https://github.com/git/git.git pu:pu

        # Respective sizes, 'alternate' clone much smaller
        du -shc /tmp/git-*.git &&

        # GC them all. Compacts the git-pu.git to git-pu-alt.git's size
        for repo in git-*.git
        do
            git -C $repo gc
        done &&
        du -shc /tmp/git-*.git

        # Add another big history (GFW) to git-{pu,master}.git (in that order!)
        for repo in $(ls -d /tmp/git-*.git | sort -r)
        do
            git -C $repo fetch --no-tags https://github.com/git-for-windows/git master:master-gfw
        done &&
        du -shc /tmp/git-*.git &&

        # Another GC. The objects now in git-master.git will be de-duped by all
        for repo in git-*.git
        do
            git -C $repo gc
        done &&
        du -shc /tmp/git-*.git
    )

This shows a scenario where we clone git.git at "master" and "pu" in
different places. After clone the relevant sizes are:

    108M    /tmp/git-master.git
    3.2M    /tmp/git-pu-alt.git
    109M    /tmp/git-pu.git
    219M    total

I.e. git-pu-alt.git is much smaller since it points via alternates to
git-master.git, and the history of "pu" shares most of the objects with
"master". But then how do you get those gains for git-pu.git? Turns out
you just "git gc"

    111M    /tmp/git-master.git
    2.1M    /tmp/git-pu-alt.git
    2.1M    /tmp/git-pu.git
    115M    total

This is the thing I was wrong about, in retrospect probably because I'd
been putting PATH_TO_REPO in objects/info/alternates, but we actually
need PATH_TO_REPO/objects, and "git gc" won't warn about this (or "git
fsck"). Probably a good idea to patch that at some point, i.e. whine
about paths in alternates that don't have objects, or at the very least
those that don't exist. #leftoverbits

Then when we fetch git-for-windows:master to all the repos they all grow
by the amount git-for-windows has diverged:

    144M    /tmp/git-master.git
    36M     /tmp/git-pu-alt.git
    36M     /tmp/git-pu.git
    214M    total

Note that the "sort -r" is critical here. If we fetched git-master.git
first (at this point the alternate for git-pu*.git) we wouldn't get the
duplication in the first place, but instead:

    144M    /tmp/git-master.git
    2.1M    /tmp/git-pu-alt.git
    2.1M    /tmp/git-pu.git
    148M    total

This shows the importance of keeping such an 'alternate' repo
up-to-date, i.e. we don't get the duplication in the first place, but
regardless (this from a run with sort -r) a "git gc" will coalesce them:

    131M    /tmp/git-master.git
    2.1M    /tmp/git-pu-alt.git
    2.2M    /tmp/git-pu.git
    135M    total

If you find this interesting make sure to read my
https://public-inbox.org/git/87k1s3bomt.fsf@evledraar.gmail.com/ and
https://public-inbox.org/git/87in7nbi5b.fsf@evledraar.gmail.com/ for the
caveats, i.e. if this is something intended for users then no ref in the
alternate can ever be rewound, that'll potentially result in repository
corruption.

1. https://public-inbox.org/git/87bmhiykvw.fsf@evledraar.gmail.com/

Re: How de-duplicate similar repositories with alternates

[Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason]

On Thu, Nov 29 2018, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason wrote:

> A co-worker asked me today how space could be saved when you have
> multiple checkouts of the same repository (at different revs) on the
> same machine. I said since these won't block-level de-duplicate well[1]
> one way to do this is with alternates.
>
> However, once you have an existing clone I didn't know how to get the
> gains without a full re-clone, but I hadn't looked deeply into it. As it
> turns out I'm wrong about that, which I found when writing the following
> test-case which shows that it works:
>
>     (
>         cd /tmp &&
>         rm -rf /tmp/git-{master,pu,pu-alt}.git &&
>
>         # Normal clones
>         git clone --bare --no-tags --single-branch --branch master https://github.com/git/git.git /tmp/git-master.git &&
>         git clone --bare --no-tags --single-branch --branch pu https://github.com/git/git.git /tmp/git-pu.git &&
>
>         # An 'alternate' clone using 'master' objects from another repo
>         git --bare init /tmp/git-pu-alt.git &&
>         for git in git-pu.git git-pu-alt.git
>         do
>             echo /tmp/git-master.git/objects >/tmp/$git/objects/info/alternates
>         done &&
>         git -C git-pu-alt.git fetch --no-tags https://github.com/git/git.git pu:pu
>
>         # Respective sizes, 'alternate' clone much smaller
>         du -shc /tmp/git-*.git &&
>
>         # GC them all. Compacts the git-pu.git to git-pu-alt.git's size
>         for repo in git-*.git
>         do
>             git -C $repo gc
>         done &&
>         du -shc /tmp/git-*.git
>
>         # Add another big history (GFW) to git-{pu,master}.git (in that order!)
>         for repo in $(ls -d /tmp/git-*.git | sort -r)
>         do
>             git -C $repo fetch --no-tags https://github.com/git-for-windows/git master:master-gfw
>         done &&
>         du -shc /tmp/git-*.git &&
>
>         # Another GC. The objects now in git-master.git will be de-duped by all
>         for repo in git-*.git
>         do
>             git -C $repo gc
>         done &&
>         du -shc /tmp/git-*.git
>     )
>
> This shows a scenario where we clone git.git at "master" and "pu" in
> different places. After clone the relevant sizes are:
>
>     108M    /tmp/git-master.git
>     3.2M    /tmp/git-pu-alt.git
>     109M    /tmp/git-pu.git
>     219M    total
>
> I.e. git-pu-alt.git is much smaller since it points via alternates to
> git-master.git, and the history of "pu" shares most of the objects with
> "master". But then how do you get those gains for git-pu.git? Turns out
> you just "git gc"
>
>     111M    /tmp/git-master.git
>     2.1M    /tmp/git-pu-alt.git
>     2.1M    /tmp/git-pu.git
>     115M    total
>
> This is the thing I was wrong about, in retrospect probably because I'd
> been putting PATH_TO_REPO in objects/info/alternates, but we actually
> need PATH_TO_REPO/objects, and "git gc" won't warn about this (or "git
> fsck"). Probably a good idea to patch that at some point, i.e. whine
> about paths in alternates that don't have objects, or at the very least
> those that don't exist. #leftoverbits

Actually looking at this again the thing that may have stumped me last
time is that this has a bad interaction with gc.bigPackThreshold. If you
have an alternate that would otherwise house most of your objects *and*
you have a pack that's larger than the gc.bigPackThreshold your mostly
redundant pack won't be removed.

That's understandable in terms of implementation, but unfortunate. It
would be nice if we learned some way to detect this, i.e. "I have this
10GB pack, but with this alternate I can extract this 100MB out of it
and throw it away". Now we just keep the 10GB pack even if it's mostly
redundant to what's in the alternate.

> Then when we fetch git-for-windows:master to all the repos they all grow
> by the amount git-for-windows has diverged:
>
>     144M    /tmp/git-master.git
>     36M     /tmp/git-pu-alt.git
>     36M     /tmp/git-pu.git
>     214M    total
>
> Note that the "sort -r" is critical here. If we fetched git-master.git
> first (at this point the alternate for git-pu*.git) we wouldn't get the
> duplication in the first place, but instead:
>
>     144M    /tmp/git-master.git
>     2.1M    /tmp/git-pu-alt.git
>     2.1M    /tmp/git-pu.git
>     148M    total
>
> This shows the importance of keeping such an 'alternate' repo
> up-to-date, i.e. we don't get the duplication in the first place, but
> regardless (this from a run with sort -r) a "git gc" will coalesce them:
>
>     131M    /tmp/git-master.git
>     2.1M    /tmp/git-pu-alt.git
>     2.2M    /tmp/git-pu.git
>     135M    total
>
> If you find this interesting make sure to read my
> https://public-inbox.org/git/87k1s3bomt.fsf@evledraar.gmail.com/ and
> https://public-inbox.org/git/87in7nbi5b.fsf@evledraar.gmail.com/ for the
> caveats, i.e. if this is something intended for users then no ref in the
> alternate can ever be rewound, that'll potentially result in repository
> corruption.
>
> 1. https://public-inbox.org/git/87bmhiykvw.fsf@evledraar.gmail.com/

Re: How de-duplicate similar repositories with alternates

[Stefan Beller]

On Thu, Nov 29, 2018 at 7:00 AM Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason
<avarab@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> A co-worker asked me today how space could be saved when you have
> multiple checkouts of the same repository (at different revs) on the
> same machine. I said since these won't block-level de-duplicate well[1]
> one way to do this is with alternates.

Another way is to use git-worktree, which would solve the gc issues
mentioned below?

I view alternates as a historic artefact as the deduping
of objects client side can be done using worktrees, and on the
serverside - I think - most of the git hosters use namespaces
and put a fork network into the same repository and use pack islands.

Can you elaborate on why worktrees would not solve the problem?
(I initially was hesitant to use them as I liked going into .git and tempering
with files such as the config directly. But now I cannot `cd .git` any more;
it turns out the advantages outweigh this corner case that I was attached to)

Re: How de-duplicate similar repositories with alternates

[Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason]

On Thu, Nov 29 2018, Stefan Beller wrote:

> On Thu, Nov 29, 2018 at 7:00 AM Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason
> <avarab@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> A co-worker asked me today how space could be saved when you have
>> multiple checkouts of the same repository (at different revs) on the
>> same machine. I said since these won't block-level de-duplicate well[1]
>> one way to do this is with alternates.
>
> Another way is to use git-worktree, which would solve the gc issues
> mentioned below?
>
> I view alternates as a historic artefact as the deduping
> of objects client side can be done using worktrees, and on the
> serverside - I think - most of the git hosters use namespaces
> and put a fork network into the same repository and use pack islands.
>
> Can you elaborate on why worktrees would not solve the problem?
> (I initially was hesitant to use them as I liked going into .git and tempering
> with files such as the config directly. But now I cannot `cd .git` any more;
> it turns out the advantages outweigh this corner case that I was attached to)

This was discussed recently on-list & I chimed in with details about
that here:
https://public-inbox.org/git/87po1waqyc.fsf@evledraar.gmail.com/ &
https://public-inbox.org/git/87muwzc2kv.fsf@evledraar.gmail.com/

In particular the "multiple devs" use-case described in the latter
E-Mail is what I have in mind. Worktrees are inherently unsuitable for
that.

Re: How de-duplicate similar repositories with alternates

[Duy Nguyen]

On Thu, Nov 29, 2018 at 9:15 PM Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason
<avarab@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> On Thu, Nov 29 2018, Stefan Beller wrote:
>
> > On Thu, Nov 29, 2018 at 7:00 AM Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason
> > <avarab@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> A co-worker asked me today how space could be saved when you have
> >> multiple checkouts of the same repository (at different revs) on the
> >> same machine. I said since these won't block-level de-duplicate well[1]
> >> one way to do this is with alternates.
> >
> > Another way is to use git-worktree, which would solve the gc issues
> > mentioned below?
> >
> > I view alternates as a historic artefact as the deduping
> > of objects client side can be done using worktrees, and on the
> > serverside - I think - most of the git hosters use namespaces
> > and put a fork network into the same repository and use pack islands.
> >
> > Can you elaborate on why worktrees would not solve the problem?
> > (I initially was hesitant to use them as I liked going into .git and tempering
> > with files such as the config directly. But now I cannot `cd .git` any more;
> > it turns out the advantages outweigh this corner case that I was attached to)
>
> This was discussed recently on-list & I chimed in with details about
> that here:
> https://public-inbox.org/git/87po1waqyc.fsf@evledraar.gmail.com/ &
> https://public-inbox.org/git/87muwzc2kv.fsf@evledraar.gmail.com/
>
> In particular the "multiple devs" use-case described in the latter
> E-Mail is what I have in mind. Worktrees are inherently unsuitable for
> that.

Yeah, the separate ref namespace is something I would like to have on
the client side too. I did consider implementing it a couple times but
it's really no small task. Naively, I could achieve that pretty quick
if all refs are loose, but performance would tank once the number of
refs goes over say a hundred.
-- 
Duy

Re: How de-duplicate similar repositories with alternates

[Jeff King]

On Thu, Nov 29, 2018 at 03:59:26PM +0100, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason wrote:

> This is the thing I was wrong about, in retrospect probably because I'd
> been putting PATH_TO_REPO in objects/info/alternates, but we actually
> need PATH_TO_REPO/objects, and "git gc" won't warn about this (or "git
> fsck"). Probably a good idea to patch that at some point, i.e. whine
> about paths in alternates that don't have objects, or at the very least
> those that don't exist. #leftoverbits

We do complain about missing directories; see alt_odb_usable().
Pointing to a real directory that doesn't happen to contain any objects
is harder. If there are no loose objects, there might not be any hashed
object directories. For a "real" object database, there should always be
a "pack/" directory. But technically the object storage directory does
not even need to have that; it can just be a directory full of loose
objects that happens not to have any at this moment.

That said, I suspect if we issued a warning for "woah, it looks like
this doesn't have any objects in it, nor does it even have a pack
directory" that nobody would complain.

-Peff

Re: How de-duplicate similar repositories with alternates

[Jeff King]

On Thu, Nov 29, 2018 at 10:55:49AM -0800, Stefan Beller wrote:

> On Thu, Nov 29, 2018 at 7:00 AM Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason
> <avarab@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > A co-worker asked me today how space could be saved when you have
> > multiple checkouts of the same repository (at different revs) on the
> > same machine. I said since these won't block-level de-duplicate well[1]
> > one way to do this is with alternates.
> 
> Another way is to use git-worktree, which would solve the gc issues
> mentioned below?
> 
> I view alternates as a historic artefact as the deduping
> of objects client side can be done using worktrees, and on the
> serverside - I think - most of the git hosters use namespaces
> and put a fork network into the same repository and use pack islands.

Nope, we definitely use alternates. The ref namespace support in Git is
not nearly complete enough to run a modern hosting site; it only kicks
in for upload-pack and receive-pack. Other commands (e.g., rev-list to
traverse for a history-view page) have no support at all. So we share
object storage, but not ref storage.

In theory the caller could namespace requests (e.g., the user asks for
"foo", the web site feeds "refs/forks/$id/refs/heads/foo" to git). But
any bugs are a lot more likely to lead to security problems (oops, you
accidentally wrote into somebody else's fork!). And ref storage has
traditionally been a sore point for scaling, so giving each fork its own
repo and refs helps break that up.

By contrast, object storage is pretty easy to share. It scales
reasonably well, and the security model is much simpler due to the
immutable nature of object names.

-Peff

Re: How de-duplicate similar repositories with alternates

[Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason]

On Tue, Dec 04 2018, Jeff King wrote:

> On Thu, Nov 29, 2018 at 03:59:26PM +0100, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason wrote:
>
>> This is the thing I was wrong about, in retrospect probably because I'd
>> been putting PATH_TO_REPO in objects/info/alternates, but we actually
>> need PATH_TO_REPO/objects, and "git gc" won't warn about this (or "git
>> fsck"). Probably a good idea to patch that at some point, i.e. whine
>> about paths in alternates that don't have objects, or at the very least
>> those that don't exist. #leftoverbits
>
> We do complain about missing directories; see alt_odb_usable().
> Pointing to a real directory that doesn't happen to contain any objects
> is harder. If there are no loose objects, there might not be any hashed
> object directories. For a "real" object database, there should always be
> a "pack/" directory. But technically the object storage directory does
> not even need to have that; it can just be a directory full of loose
> objects that happens not to have any at this moment.
>
> That said, I suspect if we issued a warning for "woah, it looks like
> this doesn't have any objects in it, nor does it even have a pack
> directory" that nobody would complain.

Yeah, although see my <87sgzjyif2.fsf@evledraar.gmail.com>, I also ran
into a different issue.

I think a warning (or even error) like this would be more useful:

    test ! -d $objdir && error... # current behavior
    test -d $objdir/objects && error "Did you mean $objdir/objects, silly?" # new error

I.e. I suspect I'm not the only one who's not read the documentation
carefully enough and thought it was a path to the root of the repo and
wondered why it silently didn't work.

Re: How de-duplicate similar repositories with alternates

[Derrick Stolee]

On 12/4/2018 2:06 AM, Jeff King wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 29, 2018 at 10:55:49AM -0800, Stefan Beller wrote:
>
>> I view alternates as a historic artefact as the deduping
>> of objects client side can be done using worktrees, and on the
>> serverside - I think - most of the git hosters use namespaces
>> and put a fork network into the same repository and use pack islands.
> By contrast, object storage is pretty easy to share. It scales
> reasonably well, and the security model is much simpler due to the
> immutable nature of object names.

And for the client side, we use alternates as an important way to scale 
VFS for Git to multiple enlistments on the same machine. VFS for Git 
manages a "shared object cache" (the alternate) that is updated in the 
background (including multi-pack-index and commit-graph).

Using worktrees for the same effect would add complications to the user 
interactions, not only when creating an enlistment but the fact that two 
enlistments cannot check out the same ref will confuse users.

Thanks,
-Stolee

[PATCH 0/3] sha1-file: warn if alternate is a git repo (not object dir)

[Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason]

This adds a warning for the issue discussed upthread. As noted in
these patches we've been emitting an "error" while not impacting the
exit code, should we die() instead? Maybe, but until there's consensus
on that let's change this to warning() while we're at it.

Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason (3):
  sha1-file: test the error behavior of alt_odb_usable()
  sha1-file: emit error if an alternate looks like a repository
  sha1-file: change alternate "error:" message to "warning:"

 sha1-file.c               | 16 ++++++++++++----
 t/t5613-info-alternate.sh | 21 +++++++++++++++++++++
 2 files changed, 33 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)

-- 
2.20.0.rc2.403.gdbc3b29805

[PATCH 1/3] sha1-file: test the error behavior of alt_odb_usable()

[Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason]

Add a test for the error() case in alt_odb_usable() where an alternate
directory doesn't exist. This behavior has been the same since
26125f6b9b ("detect broken alternates.", 2006-02-22), but if that
error() was turned into die() the entire test suite would still pass.

Perhaps we should die() in that case, but let's start by adding a test
here to assert the long-standing existing behavior.

Signed-off-by: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab@gmail.com>
---
 t/t5613-info-alternate.sh | 7 +++++++
 1 file changed, 7 insertions(+)

diff --git a/t/t5613-info-alternate.sh b/t/t5613-info-alternate.sh
index 895f46bb91..d2964c57b7 100755
--- a/t/t5613-info-alternate.sh
+++ b/t/t5613-info-alternate.sh
@@ -136,4 +136,11 @@ test_expect_success CASE_INSENSITIVE_FS 'dup finding can be case-insensitive' '
 	test_cmp expect actual.alternates
 '
 
+test_expect_success 'print "error" on non-existing alternate' '
+	git init --bare I &&
+	echo DOES_NOT_EXIST >I/objects/info/alternates &&
+	git -C I fsck 2>stderr &&
+	test_i18ngrep "does not exist; check" stderr
+'
+
 test_done
-- 
2.20.0.rc2.403.gdbc3b29805

[PATCH 2/3] sha1-file: emit error if an alternate looks like a repository

[Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason]

Since 26125f6b9b ("detect broken alternates.", 2006-02-22) we've
emitted an error if the alternates directory doesn't exist, but not
for the common misstep of adding a path to another git repository as
an alternate, as opposed to its "objects" directory.

Let's check for this, i.e. whether X/objects or X/.git/objects exists
if the user supplies X and print an error (which as a commit leading
up to this one shows doesn't change the exit code, just "warns").

This check is intentionally not implemented by e.g. requiring that any
of X/?? exists or X/info or X/pack exists. It's a legitimate use-case
to point to an existing alternate that hasn't been populated yet, but
pointing to one where an "X/objects" or "X/.git/objects" directory
exists is definitely a mistake we should warn the user about.

Signed-off-by: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab@gmail.com>
---
 sha1-file.c               | 10 +++++++++-
 t/t5613-info-alternate.sh | 14 ++++++++++++++
 2 files changed, 23 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/sha1-file.c b/sha1-file.c
index 5bd11c85bc..f142f81658 100644
--- a/sha1-file.c
+++ b/sha1-file.c
@@ -376,12 +376,20 @@ static int alt_odb_usable(struct raw_object_store *o,
 {
 	struct alternate_object_database *alt;
 
-	/* Detect cases where alternate disappeared */
 	if (!is_directory(path->buf)) {
+		/* Detect cases where alternate disappeared */
 		error(_("object directory %s does not exist; "
 			"check .git/objects/info/alternates"),
 		      path->buf);
 		return 0;
+	} else if (is_directory(mkpath("%s/objects", path->buf)) ||
+		   is_directory(mkpath("%s/.git/objects", path->buf))) {
+		/* Detect cases where alternate is a git repository */
+		error(_("object directory %s looks like a git repository; "
+			"alternates must point to the 'objects' directory. "
+			"check .git/objects/info/alternates"),
+		      path->buf);
+		return 0;
 	}
 
 	/*
diff --git a/t/t5613-info-alternate.sh b/t/t5613-info-alternate.sh
index d2964c57b7..b959e21421 100755
--- a/t/t5613-info-alternate.sh
+++ b/t/t5613-info-alternate.sh
@@ -143,4 +143,18 @@ test_expect_success 'print "error" on non-existing alternate' '
 	test_i18ngrep "does not exist; check" stderr
 '
 
+test_expect_success 'print "error" on alternate that looks like a git repository' '
+	git init --bare J &&
+	git init --bare K &&
+
+	# H is bare, G is not
+	echo ../../H >J/objects/info/alternates &&
+	echo ../../G >K/objects/info/alternates &&
+
+	git -C J fsck 2>stderr &&
+	test_i18ngrep "looks like a git repository; alternates must" stderr &&
+	git -C K fsck 2>stderr &&
+	test_i18ngrep "looks like a git repository; alternates must" stderr
+'
+
 test_done
-- 
2.20.0.rc2.403.gdbc3b29805

[PATCH 3/3] sha1-file: change alternate "error:" message to "warning:"

[Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason]

Change the "error" message emitted by alt_odb_usable() to be a
"warning" instead. As noted in commits leading up to this one this has
never impacted the exit code ever since the check was initially added
in 26125f6b9b ("detect broken alternates.", 2006-02-22).

It's confusing to emit an "error" when e.g. "git fsck" will exit with
0, so let's emit a "warning:" instead.

Signed-off-by: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab@gmail.com>
---
 sha1-file.c | 14 +++++++-------
 1 file changed, 7 insertions(+), 7 deletions(-)

diff --git a/sha1-file.c b/sha1-file.c
index f142f81658..4b9b63bdcb 100644
--- a/sha1-file.c
+++ b/sha1-file.c
@@ -378,17 +378,17 @@ static int alt_odb_usable(struct raw_object_store *o,
 
 	if (!is_directory(path->buf)) {
 		/* Detect cases where alternate disappeared */
-		error(_("object directory %s does not exist; "
-			"check .git/objects/info/alternates"),
-		      path->buf);
+		warning(_("object directory %s does not exist; "
+			  "check .git/objects/info/alternates"),
+			path->buf);
 		return 0;
 	} else if (is_directory(mkpath("%s/objects", path->buf)) ||
 		   is_directory(mkpath("%s/.git/objects", path->buf))) {
 		/* Detect cases where alternate is a git repository */
-		error(_("object directory %s looks like a git repository; "
-			"alternates must point to the 'objects' directory. "
-			"check .git/objects/info/alternates"),
-		      path->buf);
+		warning(_("object directory %s looks like a git repository; "
+			  "alternates must point to the 'objects' directory. "
+			  "check .git/objects/info/alternates"),
+			path->buf);
 		return 0;
 	}
 
-- 
2.20.0.rc2.403.gdbc3b29805

Re: How de-duplicate similar repositories with alternates

[Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason]

On Thu, Nov 29 2018, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason wrote:

> A co-worker asked me today how space could be saved when you have
> multiple checkouts of the same repository (at different revs) on the
> same machine. I said since these won't block-level de-duplicate well[1]
> one way to do this is with alternates.
>
> However, once you have an existing clone I didn't know how to get the
> gains without a full re-clone, but I hadn't looked deeply into it. As it
> turns out I'm wrong about that, which I found when writing the following
> test-case which shows that it works:
>
>     (
>         cd /tmp &&
>         rm -rf /tmp/git-{master,pu,pu-alt}.git &&
>
>         # Normal clones
>         git clone --bare --no-tags --single-branch --branch master https://github.com/git/git.git /tmp/git-master.git &&
>         git clone --bare --no-tags --single-branch --branch pu https://github.com/git/git.git /tmp/git-pu.git &&
>
>         # An 'alternate' clone using 'master' objects from another repo
>         git --bare init /tmp/git-pu-alt.git &&
>         for git in git-pu.git git-pu-alt.git
>         do
>             echo /tmp/git-master.git/objects >/tmp/$git/objects/info/alternates
>         done &&
>         git -C git-pu-alt.git fetch --no-tags https://github.com/git/git.git pu:pu
>
>         # Respective sizes, 'alternate' clone much smaller
>         du -shc /tmp/git-*.git &&
>
>         # GC them all. Compacts the git-pu.git to git-pu-alt.git's size
>         for repo in git-*.git
>         do
>             git -C $repo gc
>         done &&
>         du -shc /tmp/git-*.git
>
>         # Add another big history (GFW) to git-{pu,master}.git (in that order!)
>         for repo in $(ls -d /tmp/git-*.git | sort -r)
>         do
>             git -C $repo fetch --no-tags https://github.com/git-for-windows/git master:master-gfw
>         done &&
>         du -shc /tmp/git-*.git &&
>
>         # Another GC. The objects now in git-master.git will be de-duped by all
>         for repo in git-*.git
>         do
>             git -C $repo gc
>         done &&
>         du -shc /tmp/git-*.git
>     )
>
> This shows a scenario where we clone git.git at "master" and "pu" in
> different places. After clone the relevant sizes are:
>
>     108M    /tmp/git-master.git
>     3.2M    /tmp/git-pu-alt.git
>     109M    /tmp/git-pu.git
>     219M    total
>
> I.e. git-pu-alt.git is much smaller since it points via alternates to
> git-master.git, and the history of "pu" shares most of the objects with
> "master". But then how do you get those gains for git-pu.git? Turns out
> you just "git gc"
>
>     111M    /tmp/git-master.git
>     2.1M    /tmp/git-pu-alt.git
>     2.1M    /tmp/git-pu.git
>     115M    total
>
> This is the thing I was wrong about, in retrospect probably because I'd
> been putting PATH_TO_REPO in objects/info/alternates, but we actually
> need PATH_TO_REPO/objects, and "git gc" won't warn about this (or "git
> fsck"). Probably a good idea to patch that at some point, i.e. whine
> about paths in alternates that don't have objects, or at the very least
> those that don't exist. #leftoverbits
>
> Then when we fetch git-for-windows:master to all the repos they all grow
> by the amount git-for-windows has diverged:
>
>     144M    /tmp/git-master.git
>     36M     /tmp/git-pu-alt.git
>     36M     /tmp/git-pu.git
>     214M    total
>
> Note that the "sort -r" is critical here. If we fetched git-master.git
> first (at this point the alternate for git-pu*.git) we wouldn't get the
> duplication in the first place, but instead:
>
>     144M    /tmp/git-master.git
>     2.1M    /tmp/git-pu-alt.git
>     2.1M    /tmp/git-pu.git
>     148M    total
>
> This shows the importance of keeping such an 'alternate' repo
> up-to-date, i.e. we don't get the duplication in the first place, but
> regardless (this from a run with sort -r) a "git gc" will coalesce them:
>
>     131M    /tmp/git-master.git
>     2.1M    /tmp/git-pu-alt.git
>     2.2M    /tmp/git-pu.git
>     135M    total
>
> If you find this interesting make sure to read my
> https://public-inbox.org/git/87k1s3bomt.fsf@evledraar.gmail.com/ and
> https://public-inbox.org/git/87in7nbi5b.fsf@evledraar.gmail.com/ for the
> caveats, i.e. if this is something intended for users then no ref in the
> alternate can ever be rewound, that'll potentially result in repository
> corruption.
>
> 1. https://public-inbox.org/git/87bmhiykvw.fsf@evledraar.gmail.com/

Maybe this is useful to someone. Here's a cronjob I wrote since I wrote
this thread that runs in daily cron on some of our systems.

It expects repositories in /var/lib/git_tree-for-alternates like
/var/lib/git_tree-for-alternates/git/git.git to exist, then scours /home
and /etc/puppet/environments (which we had a lot of) for "config" files
with the string in git/git (this saves us some work) and then tries to
find a git repository relative to that "config" file with "rev-parse
--absolute-git-dir".

If there is one, we check if the repository has a SHA-1 that the history
of our /var/lib/git_tree-for-alternates/git/git.git started with (if >1
we pick the oldest), if so this is a repository that can benefit from
using /var/lib/git_tree-for-alternates/git/git.git/objects as an
alternate, and we add the appropriate alternate info, unset
gc.bigPackThreshold so GC will actually do its work, and run "git gc"
sudo'd as the the user who owns the thing.

One one server the .git directories in /home went from ~2TB to ~100GB
using this script. On another from ~250G to ~5G. The leftover space
spent is the commit-grah (not de-duped like objects are), and whatever
accumulated divergence (topic branches mainly) exist in those repos
different than what the alternate store has in the HEAD branch.

#!/bin/bash

set -euo pipefail

ALTERNATES_STORE=/var/lib/git_tree-for-alternates

if ! test -d $ALTERNATES_STORE
then
    echo 'We have no alternates repositories here to point to!' >&2
    exit 0
fi


find_owning_user() {
    path=$1
    case $path in
        /home/*|/etc/puppet/environments/*)
            who=$(echo $path | perl -pe 's[^
                (?:
                    /home
                    |
                    /etc/puppet/environments
                )
                /
                ([^/]+)
                /
                .*
            ][$1]gx')
            if getent passwd $who >/dev/null
            then
                echo $who
            else
                echo "Know how to get user from path '$path', but '$who' is not a valid user!" >&2
            fi
            ;;
        *)
            echo "Don't know how to get user from path '$path' yet!" >&2
            ;;
    esac
}

find $ALTERNATES_STORE -type d -name '*.git' -printf "%P\n" |
while read alternate
do
    alternate_no_git=$(echo $alternate | sed 's/\.git//')
    ALTERNATES_STORE_OBJECTS=$ALTERNATES_STORE/$alternate/objects

    # If these repositories we're finding don't share a root commit
    # with the repo we have this is not going to work and we have the
    # wrong match. Note that we can have more than one root commit
    # and try to find the oldest one. Pretty sure bet that that's
    # the "real" root.
    root_commit=$(git -C $ALTERNATES_STORE/$alternate log --max-parents=0 --date-order --reverse --pretty=format:%H | head -n 1)
    echo "> Finding repositories on the system that share the $root_commit commit with $alternate" >&2

    find \
        /home \
        $(if test -d /etc/puppet/environments; then echo /etc/puppet/environments; fi) \
        -type f -name 'config' -exec grep -Hl $alternate_no_git {} \; 2>/dev/null |
    while read config
    do
        dirname=$(dirname $config)
        echo ">> Checking if $dirname is in a $alternate git repository..." >&2
        if git_dir=$(git -C $dirname rev-parse --absolute-git-dir) &&
                git -C $git_dir cat-file -e $root_commit
        then
            echo ">>> ...Yes it was, at $git_dir" >&2
            echo ">>>> Is it already migrated?..." >&2
            if test -e $git_dir/objects/info/alternates &&
                    grep -x -F -q $ALTERNATES_STORE_OBJECTS $git_dir/objects/info/alternates
            then
                echo ">>>> ...yes, nothing to do here" >&2
                continue
            else
                echo ">>>> ...no, doing migration" >&2

                who=$(find_owning_user $git_dir)
                if test -z "$who"
                then
                    echo ">>>>> unable to find who owns $git_dir" >&2
                    continue
                else
                    echo ">>>>> found that $who owns $git_dir" >&2
                fi

                if test "$DRY_RUN" = "1"
                then
                    echo ">>>>>> Would have ran commands migrating $git_dir"
                else
                    if ! sudo -u $who stat $git_dir >/dev/null 2>&1
                    then
                        echo ">>>>>> The '$who' user can't access his own '$git_dir'. Could be e.g. ex-employee. Using 'root'"
                        who=root
                    fi

                    echo ">>>>>> Migrating $git_dir is now $(sudo -u $who du -sh $git_dir | cut -f1)"
                    sudo -u $who git -C $git_dir config gc.bigPackThreshold 0
                    echo $ALTERNATES_STORE_OBJECTS | sudo tee -a $git_dir/objects/info/alternates >/dev/null
                    sudo -u $who git -C $git_dir gc
                    echo ">>>>>> Migrated $git_dir is now $(sudo -u $who du -sh $git_dir | cut -f1)"
                fi
            fi
        else
            echo ">>> No it isn't. Skipping it" >&2
            continue
        fi
    done
done

Re: How de-duplicate similar repositories with alternates

[Derrick Stolee]

On 12/4/2018 8:35 AM, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason wrote:
>   The leftover space
> spent is the commit-grah (not de-duped like objects are), and...

The commit-graph could be shared, as the commits in each enlistment can 
be parsed from local with GENERATION_NUMBER_INFINITY, giving us similar 
speedups.

The issue is: who updates the file? As the commit-graph gets behind, 
performance will degrade. But it seems like you'd need similar 
maintenance on the alternate object store, anyway.

Thanks,
-Stolee

Re: How de-duplicate similar repositories with alternates

[Junio C Hamano]

Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab@gmail.com> writes:

> I think a warning (or even error) like this would be more useful:
>
>     test ! -d $objdir && error... # current behavior
>     test -d $objdir/objects && error "Did you mean $objdir/objects, silly?" # new error

If it is an error common enough, perhaps we could even DWIM it, I
guess, that is...

	if test ! -d $objdir
	then
		error
	elif test -d $objdir/objects/pack
	then
		possibly warn
		objdir=$objdir/objects
	fi

> I.e. I suspect I'm not the only one who's not read the documentation
> carefully enough and thought it was a path to the root of the repo and
> wondered why it silently didn't work.

Re: [PATCH 2/3] sha1-file: emit error if an alternate looks like a repository

[Junio C Hamano]

Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason  <avarab@gmail.com> writes:

> Since 26125f6b9b ("detect broken alternates.", 2006-02-22) we've
> emitted an error if the alternates directory doesn't exist, but not
> for the common misstep of adding a path to another git repository as
> an alternate, as opposed to its "objects" directory.
>
> Let's check for this, i.e. whether X/objects or X/.git/objects exists
> if the user supplies X and print an error (which as a commit leading
> up to this one shows doesn't change the exit code, just "warns").

I agree that "Let's check for this" is a good idea, but do not
necessarily agree with "i.e.".  Don't we have a helper that takes
the path to an existing directory and answers "Yup, it does look
like a Git repository"?  Using that is a lot more in line with what
you claimed to do in the title for this patch.

I haven't read 3/3 yet, but as I said, I suspect it is reasonable to
DWIM and use the object store associated with the directory we found
to be a repository.

Re: [PATCH 3/3] sha1-file: change alternate "error:" message to "warning:"

[Junio C Hamano]

Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason  <avarab@gmail.com> writes:

> Change the "error" message emitted by alt_odb_usable() to be a
> "warning" instead. As noted in commits leading up to this one this has
> never impacted the exit code ever since the check was initially added
> in 26125f6b9b ("detect broken alternates.", 2006-02-22).
>
> It's confusing to emit an "error" when e.g. "git fsck" will exit with
> 0, so let's emit a "warning:" instead.

OK, that sounds sensible.  An alternative that may be more sensible
is to actually diagnose this as an error, but the purpose of this
message is to help users diagnose a possible misconfiguration and
keeping the repository "working" with the remaining set of object
stores by leaving it as a mere warning, like this patch does, is
probably a better approach.

Re: [PATCH 3/3] sha1-file: change alternate "error:" message to "warning:"

[Jeff King]

On Wed, Dec 05, 2018 at 12:37:58PM +0900, Junio C Hamano wrote:

> Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason  <avarab@gmail.com> writes:
> 
> > Change the "error" message emitted by alt_odb_usable() to be a
> > "warning" instead. As noted in commits leading up to this one this has
> > never impacted the exit code ever since the check was initially added
> > in 26125f6b9b ("detect broken alternates.", 2006-02-22).
> >
> > It's confusing to emit an "error" when e.g. "git fsck" will exit with
> > 0, so let's emit a "warning:" instead.
> 
> OK, that sounds sensible.  An alternative that may be more sensible
> is to actually diagnose this as an error, but the purpose of this
> message is to help users diagnose a possible misconfiguration and
> keeping the repository "working" with the remaining set of object
> stores by leaving it as a mere warning, like this patch does, is
> probably a better approach.

Yeah, I think it's better to keep it as a warning. It's actually
reasonably likely to be benign (e.g., you did a "git repack -ad && rm
/path/to/alternate" to remove the dependency, but forgot to clean up the
alternates). And when it _is_ a problem, the object-reading code paths
will definitely let you know.

-Peff

Re: [PATCH 2/3] sha1-file: emit error if an alternate looks like a repository

[Jeff King]

On Wed, Dec 05, 2018 at 12:35:08PM +0900, Junio C Hamano wrote:

> Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason  <avarab@gmail.com> writes:
> 
> > Since 26125f6b9b ("detect broken alternates.", 2006-02-22) we've
> > emitted an error if the alternates directory doesn't exist, but not
> > for the common misstep of adding a path to another git repository as
> > an alternate, as opposed to its "objects" directory.
> >
> > Let's check for this, i.e. whether X/objects or X/.git/objects exists
> > if the user supplies X and print an error (which as a commit leading
> > up to this one shows doesn't change the exit code, just "warns").
> 
> I agree that "Let's check for this" is a good idea, but do not
> necessarily agree with "i.e.".  Don't we have a helper that takes
> the path to an existing directory and answers "Yup, it does look
> like a Git repository"?  Using that is a lot more in line with what
> you claimed to do in the title for this patch.

Hmm. Yeah, one case this does not handle is when ".git" is a git-file
pointing elsewhere, which should trigger the condition, too.

I think we can afford to be a bit loose with this check if it's just
generating a warning for a case that would otherwise not work (and the
worst is that we might fail to correctly diagnose a broken setup). But
that I think points to another issue: this kicks in even if the path is
otherwise usable.

So if had, say, a git repository whose worktree was full of objects and
packfiles, it currently works for me to point to that as an alternate.
But after this patch, we'd complain "wait, this looks like a git repo!".

So I'd much rather see the logic check first for something usable, and
only when we fail to find it, start doing a loose diagnosis. Something
like:

  if !is_directory($path)
	complain that it does not exist, as now
  else if !is_directory($path/pack)
	/*
	 * it doesn't look like an object directory; technically it
	 * _could_ just have loose objects, and maybe we ought to check
	 * for directories matching [0-9a-f]{2}, though it seems
	 * somewhat unlikely these days.
	 */
	if is_directory($path/objects) || exists($path/.git)
		complain that it looks like a git dir
	else
		complain that it doesn't look like an object dir
  fi

Hmm. I managed to write a gross mix of C and shell for my pseudocode,
but hopefully you can read it. ;)

> I haven't read 3/3 yet, but as I said, I suspect it is reasonable to
> DWIM and use the object store associated with the directory we found
> to be a repository.

Yeah, I'm tempted by that, too, though I worry about corner cases. How
much effort should we put into discovery? I guess the rules from
enter_repo() would make sense, though the logic in that function would
need some refactoring to be reused elsewhere.

-Peff

[PATCH v2] sha1-file: test the error behavior of alt_odb_usable()

[Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason]

Add a test for the error() case in alt_odb_usable() where an alternate
directory doesn't exist. This behavior has been the same since
26125f6b9b ("detect broken alternates.", 2006-02-22), but if that
error() was turned into die() the entire test suite would still pass.

Perhaps we should die() in that case, but let's start by adding a test
here to assert the long-standing existing behavior.

Signed-off-by: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab@gmail.com>
---

Unchanged from a 3-part series I submitted in December:
https://public-inbox.org/git/20181204132716.19208-1-avarab@gmail.com/

Part of trying to re-submit the uncontentious parts of whatever I've
submitted in the past that I have stalled for whatever reason...

 t/t5613-info-alternate.sh | 7 +++++++
 1 file changed, 7 insertions(+)

diff --git a/t/t5613-info-alternate.sh b/t/t5613-info-alternate.sh
index 895f46bb91..d2964c57b7 100755
--- a/t/t5613-info-alternate.sh
+++ b/t/t5613-info-alternate.sh
@@ -136,4 +136,11 @@ test_expect_success CASE_INSENSITIVE_FS 'dup finding can be case-insensitive' '
 	test_cmp expect actual.alternates
 '
 
+test_expect_success 'print "error" on non-existing alternate' '
+	git init --bare I &&
+	echo DOES_NOT_EXIST >I/objects/info/alternates &&
+	git -C I fsck 2>stderr &&
+	test_i18ngrep "does not exist; check" stderr
+'
+
 test_done
-- 
2.21.0.392.gf8f6787159e

Re: [PATCH v2] sha1-file: test the error behavior of alt_odb_usable()

[Jeff King]

On Thu, Mar 28, 2019 at 09:04:56PM +0100, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason wrote:

> Add a test for the error() case in alt_odb_usable() where an alternate
> directory doesn't exist. This behavior has been the same since
> 26125f6b9b ("detect broken alternates.", 2006-02-22), but if that
> error() was turned into die() the entire test suite would still pass.
>
> Perhaps we should die() in that case, but let's start by adding a test
> here to assert the long-standing existing behavior.

I think if anything we might go the other direction, and downgrade the
error() to a warning() or even omit it entirely. It's not an error to
have a missing or transient alternate. Unless of course it has objects
you need, but then those generate their own errors.

I actually think in an ideal world we wouldn't say anything at all about
alternates which aren't present, don't appear to contain objects, etc,
on their own. And then when we hit an error because an object is
missing, only _then_ diagnose and say "hey, you have this alternate but
it doesn't have anything in it. Maybe that's an error?". Doing that
diagnosis in the error path helps in two ways:

  - we don't have to worry about it being slow

  - we can be a bit more loose about things that _might_ be an issue.
    E.g., it's not an error to point to an alternate directory that has
    no files in it. It might be a misconfiguration, or it might just not
    have any objects right now. It's hard to justify complaining about
    it in _every_ git command that loads alternates. But after hitting a
    fatal error due to a missing object, it seems like a convenient
    thing to mention to the user.

I suspect that implementing it that way might be a pain, though. Even if
we had a convenient diagnose_missing_object() one-liner, there are
probably dozens of separate places it would need to be called from.

> diff --git a/t/t5613-info-alternate.sh b/t/t5613-info-alternate.sh
> index 895f46bb91..d2964c57b7 100755
> --- a/t/t5613-info-alternate.sh
> +++ b/t/t5613-info-alternate.sh
> @@ -136,4 +136,11 @@ test_expect_success CASE_INSENSITIVE_FS 'dup finding can be case-insensitive' '
>  	test_cmp expect actual.alternates
>  '
>  
> +test_expect_success 'print "error" on non-existing alternate' '
> +	git init --bare I &&
> +	echo DOES_NOT_EXIST >I/objects/info/alternates &&
> +	git -C I fsck 2>stderr &&
> +	test_i18ngrep "does not exist; check" stderr
> +'

All that said, I don't really have an objection against this patch,
since it's just testing the current behavior. Anybody who wants to
change it would find it pretty easy to tweak this test, too.

-Peff

Re: [PATCH v2] sha1-file: test the error behavior of alt_odb_usable()

[Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason]

On Fri, Mar 29 2019, Jeff King wrote:

> On Thu, Mar 28, 2019 at 09:04:56PM +0100, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason wrote:
>
>> Add a test for the error() case in alt_odb_usable() where an alternate
>> directory doesn't exist. This behavior has been the same since
>> 26125f6b9b ("detect broken alternates.", 2006-02-22), but if that
>> error() was turned into die() the entire test suite would still pass.
>>
>> Perhaps we should die() in that case, but let's start by adding a test
>> here to assert the long-standing existing behavior.
>
> I think if anything we might go the other direction, and downgrade the
> error() to a warning() or even omit it entirely. It's not an error to
> have a missing or transient alternate. Unless of course it has objects
> you need, but then those generate their own errors.

Yeah that sounds fine. FWIW it's just an "error" in the sense of being
printed out by error(), but we proceed, so it's really a warning,
sort-of.

> I actually think in an ideal world we wouldn't say anything at all about
> alternates which aren't present, don't appear to contain objects, etc,
> on their own. And then when we hit an error because an object is
> missing, only _then_ diagnose and say "hey, you have this alternate but
> it doesn't have anything in it. Maybe that's an error?". Doing that
> diagnosis in the error path helps in two ways:
>
>   - we don't have to worry about it being slow
>
>   - we can be a bit more loose about things that _might_ be an issue.
>     E.g., it's not an error to point to an alternate directory that has
>     no files in it. It might be a misconfiguration, or it might just not
>     have any objects right now. It's hard to justify complaining about
>     it in _every_ git command that loads alternates. But after hitting a
>     fatal error due to a missing object, it seems like a convenient
>     thing to mention to the user.
>
> I suspect that implementing it that way might be a pain, though. Even if
> we had a convenient diagnose_missing_object() one-liner, there are
> probably dozens of separate places it would need to be called from.
>
>> diff --git a/t/t5613-info-alternate.sh b/t/t5613-info-alternate.sh
>> index 895f46bb91..d2964c57b7 100755
>> --- a/t/t5613-info-alternate.sh
>> +++ b/t/t5613-info-alternate.sh
>> @@ -136,4 +136,11 @@ test_expect_success CASE_INSENSITIVE_FS 'dup finding can be case-insensitive' '
>>  	test_cmp expect actual.alternates
>>  '
>>
>> +test_expect_success 'print "error" on non-existing alternate' '
>> +	git init --bare I &&
>> +	echo DOES_NOT_EXIST >I/objects/info/alternates &&
>> +	git -C I fsck 2>stderr &&
>> +	test_i18ngrep "does not exist; check" stderr
>> +'
>
> All that said, I don't really have an objection against this patch,
> since it's just testing the current behavior. Anybody who wants to
> change it would find it pretty easy to tweak this test, too.

Yup. Just wanted to get the patch to test what we do *currently* out,
might loop back to finishing up the rest of this.

Re: [PATCH v2] sha1-file: test the error behavior of alt_odb_usable()

[Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason]

On Fri, Mar 29 2019, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason wrote:

> On Fri, Mar 29 2019, Jeff King wrote:
>
>> On Thu, Mar 28, 2019 at 09:04:56PM +0100, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason wrote:
>>
>>> Add a test for the error() case in alt_odb_usable() where an alternate
>>> directory doesn't exist. This behavior has been the same since
>>> 26125f6b9b ("detect broken alternates.", 2006-02-22), but if that
>>> error() was turned into die() the entire test suite would still pass.
>>>
>>> Perhaps we should die() in that case, but let's start by adding a test
>>> here to assert the long-standing existing behavior.
>>
>> I think if anything we might go the other direction, and downgrade the
>> error() to a warning() or even omit it entirely. It's not an error to
>> have a missing or transient alternate. Unless of course it has objects
>> you need, but then those generate their own errors.
>
> Yeah that sounds fine. FWIW it's just an "error" in the sense of being
> printed out by error(), but we proceed, so it's really a warning,
> sort-of.
>
>> I actually think in an ideal world we wouldn't say anything at all about
>> alternates which aren't present, don't appear to contain objects, etc,
>> on their own. And then when we hit an error because an object is
>> missing, only _then_ diagnose and say "hey, you have this alternate but
>> it doesn't have anything in it. Maybe that's an error?". Doing that
>> diagnosis in the error path helps in two ways:
>>
>>   - we don't have to worry about it being slow
>>
>>   - we can be a bit more loose about things that _might_ be an issue.
>>     E.g., it's not an error to point to an alternate directory that has
>>     no files in it. It might be a misconfiguration, or it might just not
>>     have any objects right now. It's hard to justify complaining about
>>     it in _every_ git command that loads alternates. But after hitting a
>>     fatal error due to a missing object, it seems like a convenient
>>     thing to mention to the user.
>>
>> I suspect that implementing it that way might be a pain, though. Even if
>> we had a convenient diagnose_missing_object() one-liner, there are
>> probably dozens of separate places it would need to be called from.
>>
>>> diff --git a/t/t5613-info-alternate.sh b/t/t5613-info-alternate.sh
>>> index 895f46bb91..d2964c57b7 100755
>>> --- a/t/t5613-info-alternate.sh
>>> +++ b/t/t5613-info-alternate.sh
>>> @@ -136,4 +136,11 @@ test_expect_success CASE_INSENSITIVE_FS 'dup finding can be case-insensitive' '
>>>  	test_cmp expect actual.alternates
>>>  '
>>>
>>> +test_expect_success 'print "error" on non-existing alternate' '
>>> +	git init --bare I &&
>>> +	echo DOES_NOT_EXIST >I/objects/info/alternates &&
>>> +	git -C I fsck 2>stderr &&
>>> +	test_i18ngrep "does not exist; check" stderr
>>> +'
>>
>> All that said, I don't really have an objection against this patch,
>> since it's just testing the current behavior. Anybody who wants to
>> change it would find it pretty easy to tweak this test, too.
>
> Yup. Just wanted to get the patch to test what we do *currently* out,
> might loop back to finishing up the rest of this.

Junio: *ping* about picking up this trivial test coverage improvement
(missed in the latest What's Cooking).

Re: [PATCH v2] sha1-file: test the error behavior of alt_odb_usable()

[Junio C Hamano]

Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab@gmail.com> writes:

>> Yup. Just wanted to get the patch to test what we do *currently* out,
>> might loop back to finishing up the rest of this.
>
> Junio: *ping* about picking up this trivial test coverage improvement

I was waiting for you to make up your mind about your earlier "might
loop back to finishing up".  For a topic like this, for which the
ball has been in your court for a long time, just resending would be
easier to handle than pinging, as I do not remember much about the
original attempt anyway ;-)

Re: [PATCH v2] sha1-file: test the error behavior of alt_odb_usable()

[Junio C Hamano]

Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab@gmail.com> writes:

>>>> +test_expect_success 'print "error" on non-existing alternate' '
>>>> +	git init --bare I &&
>>>> +	echo DOES_NOT_EXIST >I/objects/info/alternates &&
>>>> +	git -C I fsck 2>stderr &&
>>>> +	test_i18ngrep "does not exist; check" stderr
>>>> +'
>>>
>>> All that said, I don't really have an objection against this patch,
>>> since it's just testing the current behavior. Anybody who wants to
>>> change it would find it pretty easy to tweak this test, too.
>>
>> Yup. Just wanted to get the patch to test what we do *currently* out,
>> might loop back to finishing up the rest of this.
>
> Junio: *ping* about picking up this trivial test coverage improvement
> (missed in the latest What's Cooking).

I went back to the original thread to see what the patch was about.

I actually am fairly negative on casting the current behaviour in
stone for this one.  Isn't the current status something like: we
notice that we say 'error', we suspect that we would want to demote
it to 'warning' or even silence, but this is not too pressing and it
is OK as long as we do not make things worse by turning it into a
more severe error.

I do not mind if the last "look in stderr" step did not exist,
though.  It is good to make sure that fsck does not die when it
sees a non-existing directory listed in the alternates file.

Re: [PATCH v2] sha1-file: test the error behavior of alt_odb_usable()

[Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason]

On Tue, Apr 09 2019, Junio C Hamano wrote:

> Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab@gmail.com> writes:
>
>>> Yup. Just wanted to get the patch to test what we do *currently* out,
>>> might loop back to finishing up the rest of this.
>>
>> Junio: *ping* about picking up this trivial test coverage improvement
>
> I was waiting for you to make up your mind about your earlier "might
> loop back to finishing up".  For a topic like this, for which the
> ball has been in your court for a long time, just resending would be
> easier to handle than pinging, as I do not remember much about the
> original attempt anyway ;-)

I don't know when I'll get to finishing the rest of it.

I'll leave it up to you if you want to queue just the test patch or drop
it. I figured I'd re-send just that since I figured just fixing the
blindspot of the current behavior would be a good thing on its own, not
as an endorsement of the current behavior, just a "this is the current
known behavior" regression test.

Re: [PATCH v2] sha1-file: test the error behavior of alt_odb_usable()

[Junio C Hamano]

Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab@gmail.com> writes:

> I'll leave it up to you if you want to queue just the test patch or drop

As I said in a separate message, I think it is good to make sure
that fsck does not crash.  I do not think it is good to grep in its
output.

> it. I figured I'd re-send just that since I figured just fixing the
> blindspot of the current behavior would be a good thing on its own, not
> as an endorsement of the current behavior, just a "this is the current
> known behavior" regression test.

If the behaviour is undesirable one, we could document the current
"breakage" with "test_expect_failure", whether we plan to fix it
immediately.  It is OK if readers cannot tell between a bug that is
expected to stay forever with us, or a bug that somebody is actively
working on.  

But unfortunately, there is no separate "test_merely_documenting",
that is different from "test_expect_success", so even if we claim
"this is not an endorsement, but is merely documenting the current
behaviour" when we add such a test, there is no way for future
readers to tell between the two, short of going back to "git blame"
and seeing the log message.

For that reason, I do not think it is a good practice to document
the "current behaviour that happens to be" the same way as "the
behaviour we desire" in test_expect_success.

Re: [PATCH v2] sha1-file: test the error behavior of alt_odb_usable()

[Jeff King]

On Tue, Apr 09, 2019 at 06:43:41PM +0900, Junio C Hamano wrote:

> Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab@gmail.com> writes:
> 
> > I'll leave it up to you if you want to queue just the test patch or drop
> 
> As I said in a separate message, I think it is good to make sure
> that fsck does not crash.  I do not think it is good to grep in its
> output.

FWIW, that approach (and your rationale below) makes a lot of sense to
me for this case.

-Peff