Re: [Resend PATCH] t3903 (stash): add failing test for ref of form ^{/message}

Ramkumar Ramachandra [off-list ref] writes:

1. Any stash that can be shown can be applied, but not necessarily
popped or dropped (as the documentation indicates).  The reason for
this is simple: a pop/drop attempts to clear the entry in the stash
reflog as well, but all stashes need to have a corresponding reflog
entry (for instance, those created with 'stash create').

Correct.

To show or apply, you only need a product of "stash create" that may
not be linked anywhere in the refs or reflogs.  But you can only pop
or drop something on the stash reflog.

2. IS_STASH_LIKE is a misnomer: all it checks is that the given <rev>
is a merge commit.

The purpose of the logic is to reject a mistake to name stuff that
is clearly not a product of "stash create".  The name is just being
humble by not claiming "I know this is definitely a product of
stash-create" but merely hinting "This smells like such an object";
I am not sure if that is a "misnomer".

You are free to try to think of a way to tighten the implemention to
reject a random two-or-three parent merge commit that is not a
product of "stash create".  People already have looked at this code
since it was written, and didn't find a reasonable way to tighten it
without triggering false negatives, so I wouldn't be surprised if
anybody tried it again today and failed.