Re: [PATCH 4/5] attr: do not respect symlinks for in-tree .gitattributes

On Wed, Nov 2, 2016 at 8:08 PM, Jeff King [off-list ref] wrote:

The attributes system may sometimes read in-tree files from
the filesystem, and sometimes from the index. In the latter
case, we do not resolve symbolic links (and are not likely
to ever start doing so). Let's open filesystem links with
O_NOFOLLOW so that the two cases behave consistently.

This sounds backward to me. The major use case is reading
.gitattributes on worktree, which follows symlinks so far. Only
git-archive has a special need to read index-only versions. The
worktree behavior should influence the in-index one, not the other way
around. If we could die("BUG" when git-archive is used on symlinks
(without --worktree-attributes). If people are annoyed by it, they can
implement symlink folllowing (to another version in index, not on
worktree).

The story is similar for .gitignore where in-index version is merely
an optimization. If it's symlinks and we can't follow, we should fall
back to worktree version.
-- 
Duy