Re: [PATCH 2/3] merge-recursive: make empty tree a known object

Linus Torvalds [off-list ref] writes:

On Sun, 10 Dec 2006, Junio C Hamano wrote:

quoted

That is fine by me.  We would benefit from an empty blob and an
empty tree.

I was wondering if we ever had any special case where we wanted the empty 
blob, and couldn't come up with any.

After saying that I was thinking about the same.  Empty blob is
not all that useful (and let's not bring up the "empty commit"
in this discussion pretty please).

In contrast, the empty tree clearly ends up being an interesting special 
case that actually gets used occasionally, ie here we had two independent 
uses for the same thing..

Two?

I sent out a patch with comment about an issue I worry about.

I do not think the empty-tree case matters in practice because
we do not allow an empty tree to be committed, but if we add
empty blob to the set of "well known objects", the backward
compatibility issue becomes real.

On Sun, 10 Dec 2006, Junio C Hamano wrote:

quoted

In contrast, the empty tree clearly ends up being an interesting special 
case that actually gets used occasionally, ie here we had two independent 
uses for the same thing..

Two?

merge-recursive and "diff against root"