Re: Performance issue of 'git branch'

Junio C Hamano [off-list ref] writes:

Exactly.

That is_null_sha1() thing was a remnant of your idea to represent deleted
ref that has a packed counterpart by storing 0{40} in a loose ref, so that
we can implement deletion efficiently.

Since we currently implement deletion by repacking packed refs if the ref
has a packed (possibly stale) one, we do not use such a "negative ref",
and skipping 0{40} done by the normal (i.e. non-raw) for_each_ref() family
is not necessary.

I was inclined to say that, because I never saw anybody complained that
deleting refs was too slow, we declare that we would forever stick to the
current implementation of ref deletion, and remove the is_null_sha1()
check from the do_one_ref() function, even for include-broken case.

But after thinking about it again, I'd say "if null, then skip" should be
outside the DO_FOR_EACH_INCLUDE_BROKEN anyway, because the null check is
not about brokenness of the ref, but is about a possible future expansion
to represent deleted ref with such a "negative ref" entry.

If we remove is_null_sha1() from do_one_ref(), or if we move it out of the
"include broken" thing, my "Not exactly nice" comment can be rescinded, as
doing the former (i.e. removal of is_null_sha1() check) is a promise that
we will never have to worry about negative refs, and doing the latter will
still protect callers of do_for_each_rawref() from negative refs if we
ever introduce them in some future.

That is, a patch like this (this should go to 'maint'), and my worries
will go away.

-- >8 --
Subject: do_one_ref(): null_sha1 check is not about broken ref

f8948e2 (remote prune: warn dangling symrefs, 2009-02-08) introduced a
more dangerous variant of for_each_ref() family that skips the check for
dangling refs, but it also made another unrelated check optional by
mistake.

The check to see if a ref points at 0{40} is not about brokenness, but is
about a possible future plan to represent a deleted ref by writing 40 "0"
in a loose ref when there is a stale version of the same ref already in
.git/packed-refs, so that we can implement deletion of a ref without
having to rewrite the packed refs file excluding the ref being deleted.
This check has to be outside of the conditional.

Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <redacted>
---
 refs.c |    5 +++--
 1 files changed, 3 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/refs.c b/refs.c
index bb0762e..3da3c8c 100644
--- a/refs.c
+++ b/refs.c

@@ -531,9 +531,10 @@ static int do_one_ref(const char *base, each_ref_fn fn, int trim,
 {
 	if (strncmp(base, entry->name, trim))
 		return 0;
+	/* Is this a "negative ref" that represents a deleted ref? */
+	if (is_null_sha1(entry->sha1))
+		return 0;
 	if (!(flags & DO_FOR_EACH_INCLUDE_BROKEN)) {
-		if (is_null_sha1(entry->sha1))
-			return 0;
 		if (!has_sha1_file(entry->sha1)) {
 			error("%s does not point to a valid object!", entry->name);
 			return 0;