Re: Index format v5

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

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

> Does the prohibition of ".git" prevent the potential for versioning of
> the .git directory itself (e.g. .gitignore the pack & objects
> themselves)?

It is a good thing that you are forbidden from adding .git/anything to the
index and the trees.  The information inside your .git/ repository does
have to change from time to time.  For example, you may change your e-mail
address and update user.email in your .git/config file.

But the history of them and the history of the evolution of the project
itself are distinct [*1*]. When you clone git.git, you have no business
learning what is in .git/config in my repository.  The project should not
be able to overwrite what is in your .git/hooks/. These are only a few
reasons why an attempt to "git add .git/something" is always a mistake.

And it is irrelevant to this discussion, as the rest of .git does not
allow putting .git anyway.  In that sense, the index "format" does not
have to enforce it.  For that reason, I would suggest dropping the mention
of ".git" (but not "..") from the format description.

[Footnote]

*1* You could choose to track the contents of .git/ in another repository
with creative uses of GIT_DIR/GIT_WORK_TREE/core.worktree and friends.