Re: Bad refspec messes up bundle.

Luciano Joublanc [off-list ref] writes:

Yesterday I created a git bundle as best as I can remember like this

git bundle save chunk chunk.bundle --all master

Note the 'master' I added accidentally at the end - this was a user
error but still the bundle was created.

When I tried to clone this, I get

~\local\src> git clone 'G:\My Drive\chunk.bundle' fs2-columns
Cloning into 'fs2-columns'...
Receiving objects: 100% (31/31), done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (5/5), done.
fatal: multiple updates for ref 'refs/remotes/origin/master' not allowed.
~\local\src> git bundle verify chunk.bundle
The bundle contains these 3 refs:
3c804437a5f8537db1bfb5d09b7bff4f9950605e refs/heads/master
3c804437a5f8537db1bfb5d09b7bff4f9950605e HEAD
3c804437a5f8537db1bfb5d09b7bff4f9950605e refs/heads/master
The bundle records a complete history.
chunk.bundle is okay

After trying a couple of things, I finally managed to clone it using

~\local\src> git clone -b master --single-branch .\chunk.bundle fs2-columns

i.e. the '--single-branch' option saved me.

Is this a bug? Should bundle allow providing multiple refspecs when
`--all` is provided? I admit this was clearly a case of 'caveat
emptor', but shouldn't this be disallowed (i.e. is there any situation
when this is useful?)

Thanks for a report.

Just like a remote repository that reports the same ref more than
once in its initial advertisement (i.e. "git ls-remote $remote"
gives duplicate entries), a bundle file that records the same ref
more than once *is* a bug, I would think.

A "git bundle create" command that creates such a bundle file
shouldn't.  It is not very useful to diagnose it as an error; it
probably makes more sense to dedup the refs instead when writing the
bundle file.  Of course, we should abort with an error *if* the code
ever tries to store the same ref twice with different object name
(i.e. attempt to dedup, in vain).

Also, "git clone" from such a bundle file (or for that matter, a
remote repository that advertises the same ref twice) probably
should do a similar deduping, with a warning message.