Re: [GSoC] Doubts in an issue

[abhishek kumar <abhishekkumar8222@gmail.com>]

Greetings Shourya

I am not exactly Johannes (just another GSoC applicant) but here's
what I understood from the issue and your thread:

> And what exactly do we mean by "built-ins" here(does it refer to the "dashed" commands)?

"Built-in" refers to commands implemented in C [1][2]. The more common
use of "built-in" which is a command that the shell (bash, sh, ksh)
carries out itself [3]. The name draws out the similarity between
shell builtins and git builtins, both written in C and executable
through the shell.

Therefore, "hardlink built-in to the corresponding dashed forms" is to
create a hard link with the dashed form name to the C program.

> where is the <<libexec/git-core/>> directory?

As the makefile suggests, the programs and scripts are installed at
`gitexecdir`. I couldn't find it but instead found `GIT_EXEC_PATH`
which point to pretty much the same thing. You can find it by `git
--exec_path` [4].

> Now, whenever we call scripts whose "dashed" version exists, it will sort of link the "dashed" version as well for I guess historical reasons? ;)

No. Creating hard links is done during the build process. But calling
`git-<script-name>` through `git <script-name>` makes `git` prepend
`libexec/gitcore` which is necessary to find the hard link. So, you
are half-right :).

Regards
Abhishek

[1]: https://github.com/msysgit/msysgit/wiki/Why-Is--libexec--so-huge%3F
[2]: https://github.com/git/git/blob/master/builtin.h
[3]: https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/11465
[4]: https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Git-Internals-Environment-Variables