Re: Commit cce8d6fdb introduces file t/t5100/nul, git tree is now incompatible with Cygwin (and probably Windows)

On 5/28/08, Junio C Hamano [off-list ref] wrote:

Mark Levedahl [off-list ref] writes:

 > As this commit is part of the published master branch, I am not sure
 > the correct resolution: leaving this commit in place means that any
 > commit between it and a commit fixing this will always cause an error
 > on Cygwin / Windows. Of course, it *is* on the published master branch.

Some broken filesystems may not be capable of checking out and using
 project files.  Too bad.

 It's not a big deal.  It is not limited to this project.  We just fix them
 or work them around and move on.

 Perhaps we should remove the infamous gitweb/test/Märchen file while we
 are at it?  I do not think the file is ever used.

As an unhappy Windows user myself (sometimes), I think it might be
better to simply fix git to *survive* failing to create files like
'nul' on Win32, rather than trying to *fix* such files in the repo.
It sounds (from the original post) like git has a *fatal* error
("cannot be checked out on cygwin") when trying to create 'nul', which
might be overkill.

The argument about rewriting the git history for this one file is
mostly predicated on the fact that you can't git-bisect if this file
exists.  Rather than making the file not exist, it might be better to
make git work when it does.

Have fun,

Avery