Re: Optimizing writes to unchanged files during merges?

[Lars Schneider <larsxschneider@gmail.com>]

> On 16 Apr 2018, at 19:45, Jacob Keller <jacob.keller@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> On Mon, Apr 16, 2018 at 10:43 AM, Jacob Keller <jacob.keller@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Mon, Apr 16, 2018 at 9:07 AM, Lars Schneider
>> <larsxschneider@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> What if Git kept a LRU list that contains file path, content hash, and
>>> mtime of any file that is removed or modified during a checkout. If a
>>> file is checked out later with the exact same path and content hash,
>>> then Git could set the mtime to the previous value. This way the
>>> compiler would not think that the content has been changed since the
>>> last rebuild.
>> 
>> That would only work until they actuall *did* a build on the second
>> branch, and upon changing back, how would this detect that it needs to
>> update mtime again? I don't think this solution really works.
>> Ultimately, the problem is that the build tool relies on the mtime to
>> determine what to rebuild. I think this would cause worse problems
>> because we *wouldn't* rebuild in the case. How is git supposed to know
>> that we rebuilt when switching branches or not?
>> 
>> Thanks,
>> Jake
> 
> I think a better solution for your problem would be to extend the
> build system you're using to avoid rebuilding when the contents
> haven't changed since last build (possibly by using hashes?). At the
> very least, I would not want this to be default, as it could possibly
> result in *no* build when there should be one, which is far more
> confusing to debug.

I am 100% with you that this is a build system issue. But changing
the build system for many teams in a large organization is really
hard. That's why I wondered if Git could help with a shortcut.
Looks like there is no shortcut (see my other reply in this thread).

Thanks
Lars