Re: [PATCH v2 4/4] gc: remove broken symrefs

[Johannes Schindelin <johannes.schindelin@gmx.de>]

Hi Junio,

On 2015-09-28 20:49, Junio C Hamano wrote:
> Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> writes:
> 
>> Johannes Schindelin <johannes.schindelin@gmx.de> writes:
>>
>>> When encountering broken symrefs, such as a stale remote HEAD (which can
>>> happen if the active branch was renamed in the remote), it is more
>>> helpful to remove those symrefs than to exit with an error.
>>
>> I think this depends on the perspective.  One side of me says that a
>> remote HEAD that points at refs/remotes/origin/topic that no longer
>> exists is still giving me a valuable information and it should take
>> a conscious action by the user to remove it, or evne better to
>> repoint it to a more useful place.  And from that point of view,
>> removing is not all that helpful.  Keeping them and not allowing
>> them to exit with an error would be a real improvement.
>>
>> On the other hand, I can certainly understand a view that considers
>> that such a dangling symbolic ref is merely a cruft like any other
>> cruft, and "gc" is all about removing cruft.
>>
>> It just feels to me that this is a bit more valuable than other
>> kinds of cruft, but maybe it is just me.
> 
> Sorry, it is a bad habit of me to send out without concluding
> remark, leaving the recipient hanging without knowing what the next
> step should be.
> 
> I meant to say that I plan to, and I indeed did, queue these 4
> without changes.  I am not opposed to the removal so strongly to
> reject [4/4].
> 
> The above comment was that I just do not know if this is the right
> thing to do, or it will be hurting users.

Oh, I appreciate your feedback. I am actually not all *that* certain that removing the broken symref is the correct thing. It is this sort of fruitful exchange that allows me to throw out an idea and be relatively certain that something better will come out of v3 or v8 of the patch series than what I had in mind.

To be honest, the most important outcome is probably 2/4 -- which should be enough to fix the issue reported by the Git for Windows user. I could adjust the test so that it no longer insists that `origin/HEAD` be deleted, but still requires that `git gc` succeeds.

I would have no problem to let this sit for a couple of days until the final verdict.

Ciao,
Dscho