Re: [PATCH 1/2] clone: Fix error message for reference repository

At 16:48 -0700 07 Apr 2013, Jonathan Nieder [off-list ref] wrote:

Hi Aaron,

Thanks for the feedback.

Aaron Schrab wrote:

quoted

Do not report an argument to clone's --reference option is not a local
directory.  Nothing checks for the actual directory so we have no way to
know if whether or not exists.  Telling the user that a directory doesn't
exist when that isn't actually known may lead him or her on the wrong
path to finding the problem.

I don't understand the above explanation.  Could you give an example?

I originally noticed this while trying to use a submodule as a reference 
repository.  Since that submodule was first checked out using a recent 
version of git it used a .git file rather than having a .git directory.  
This caused the checks to fail, and the misleading error message had me 
checking for a typo in the path which I'd supplied.

I'll attempt to clarify that message in the next version.

quoted

--- a/builtin/clone.c
+++ b/builtin/clone.c

@@ -241,7 +241,7 @@ static int add_one_reference(struct string_list_item *item, void *cb_data)
 		free(ref_git);
 		ref_git = ref_git_git;
 	} else if (!is_directory(mkpath("%s/objects", ref_git)))
-		die(_("reference repository '%s' is not a local directory."),
+		die(_("reference repository '%s' is not a local repository."),

"is_directory" calls stat and checks if its target is a directory.  Is
the problem that "/path/to/repo.git" might be a directory but
"/path/to/repo.git/objects" may not?

In my case the issue was that /path/to/repo is a directory, but 
/path/to/repo/.git/objects (which is checked shortly before the above 
context) didn't exist since /path/to/repo/.git is a file.

Would it make sense for the message to say something like the
following?

fatal: alternate object store '/path/to/repo.git/objects' is not a local directory

That would also avoid lying to the user.  But if combined with the 
second patch in this series it could cause confusion for a different 
reason.  Once .git files are honored, the path reported there may have 
no relation to the path supplied by the user.