Re: gc considered dangerous

Robin Rosenberg [off-list ref] writes:

I've seen this. Running git gc on Windows, while having Elipse open can kill your
object database. 

Eclipse keeps the pack files open most of the time. Then you 
launch git gui which recommends the user to do a git gc. I never
do (it *always* wants to do this), so I haven't encountered the 
issue, but if gc doesn't find a new optimal pack it tries to rewrite a 
new pack with the same id. So it rm's the idx file (fine) and the the
pack file (not ok) and gives up, which means it has a .pack file with 
no index, so it cannot use it. Trying git gc again after eclipse exits 
will execute the final stab on your objects. 

The underlying bug is ofcource that Windows locks files when
they are open. A *nix* user does not suffer from this problem.

I'll investigate more at some other time. This is a preliminary
analysis.

That sounds like you are hitting this codepath in git-repack.sh:

	fullbases="$fullbases pack-$name"
	chmod a-w "$PACKTMP-$name.pack"
	chmod a-w "$PACKTMP-$name.idx"
	mkdir -p "$PACKDIR" || exit

	for sfx in pack idx
	do
		if test -f "$PACKDIR/pack-$name.$sfx"
		then
			mv -f "$PACKDIR/pack-$name.$sfx" \
				"$PACKDIR/old-pack-$name.$sfx"
		fi
	done &&
	mv -f "$PACKTMP-$name.pack" "$PACKDIR/pack-$name.pack" &&
	mv -f "$PACKTMP-$name.idx"  "$PACKDIR/pack-$name.idx" &&
	test -f "$PACKDIR/pack-$name.pack" &&
	test -f "$PACKDIR/pack-$name.idx" || {
		echo >&2 "Couldn't replace the existing pack with updated one."
		echo >&2 "The original set of packs have been saved as"
		echo >&2 "old-pack-$name.{pack,idx} in $PACKDIR."
		exit 1
	}
	rm -f "$PACKDIR/old-pack-$name.pack" "$PACKDIR/old-pack-$name.idx"

We created a pack and an idx successfully in a pair of temporary files, we
notice that pack-$name.idx and/or pack-$name.pack exists and try to move
them out of the way, then we install the new ones in their final
destination, and we try to see if that move succeeded.  If any one of
these steps fails, the entire process fails, but along the way we
shouldn't have lost anything.

I see if .pack can be renamed but .idx can't, then it is possible to get
into a state where you have to mix and match pack-$name.pack and
old-pack-$name.idx.