Re: git worktrees must exist even if locked

"taylor, david" [off-list ref] writes:

The original report was against Git v2.12.2.  I have since tried v2.12.3, v2.13.0,
and the next branch.  All exhibit the same symptoms.

Even if you ignore the original scenario for creating the problem, if I do a 'rm -rf' or 'mv'
of a tree that contains within it worktrees, that should not break the use of Git with
worktrees that live elsewhere nor commands that don't require a repository.

Duy, any ideas?

Thanks.

quoted

-----Original Message-----
From: taylor, david
Sent: Wednesday, May 10, 2017 4:25 PM
To: git@vger.kernel.org
Subject: git worktrees must exist even if locked

The Git documentation in describing worktrees says that one reason
why you might want to lock a worktree is to prevent it from being pruned
if it is on a removable media that isn't currently mounted.

So, my expectation was that if the worktree is inaccessible (and locked), Git
would pretend that there is no worktree by that name.

In reality, if you have such a worktree, Git gets an error.

 On local systems, /home is local to a machine; home directories are
elsewhere.
Home directories are NFS mounted; /home is not.

. create a repository in /my/home/dir/my-repo.git with

    git clone --bare <some arguments>

. create an empty directory /home/somedir/worktree-tests

. use 'git worktree add' to add /home/somedir/worktree-tests/<branch-
name>
  as a worktree on branch <branch-name>.  It gets populated with the correct
  content.

. lock it using'git worktree lock'

So far, so good.  Now, go to a different computer -- one on which
/home/somedir/worktree-tests does not exist (and therefore
/home/somedir/worktree-tests/<branch-name> does not exist).

. cd /my/home/dir/my-repo.git

Now, try issuing Git commands.  Many will fail.

  git fetch ==> fails:

  fatal: Invalid path '/home/somedir/worktree-tests': No such file or directory

  git status ==> fails -- same error as above
  git help worktree ==> fails -- same error as above