Attempting to change the case of a folder's name using a command like
`git mv foo FOO` crashes on case-insensitive file systems, like the
default APFS used on Apple Macs.
Here are simple steps to repro this:
$ mkdir testrepo && cd testrepo && git init
Initialized empty Git repository in /Users/markamery/testrepo/.git/
$ mkdir foo && touch foo/bar && git add foo && git commit -m bla
[master (root-commit) a7e9f5f] bla
1 file changed, 0 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
create mode 100644 foo/bar
$ git mv foo FOO
fatal: renaming 'foo' failed: Invalid argument
$ echo $?
128
$ git status
On branch master
nothing to commit, working tree clean
If I create a case-sensitive APFS volume using Disk Utility and try
the commands above on that volume, `git mv foo FOO` works correctly:
it emits no output, exits with a 0 status code, and stages a change
renaming `foo/bar` to `FOO/bar`. However, on my main case-insensitive
volume, `git mv` behaves as shown above: it exits with code 128,
prints an "Invalid argument" error message, and does not stage any
changes.
The command still fails in the same way if you use `git mv --force`
instead of just `git mv`.
Note that previously, `git mv` could not change the case of *file*
names on case-insensitive file systems, until that was fixed in commit
https://github.com/git/git/commit/baa37bff9a845471754d3f47957d58a6ccc30058.
I'm guessing there's a different code path that needs fixing for
changing the case of *folders*.
As far as I can tell, this error has never been reported to the Git
mailing list, but it seems to be encountered frequently;
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3011625/git-mv-and-only-change-case-of-directory
mentions this bug and has 86000 views.
In case it's relevant, here's my system info as output by `git bugreport`:
[System Info]
git version:
git version 2.31.1
cpu: x86_64
no commit associated with this build
sizeof-long: 8
sizeof-size_t: 8
shell-path: /bin/sh
uname: Darwin 18.7.0 Darwin Kernel Version 18.7.0: Mon Apr 27
20:09:39 PDT 2020; root:xnu-4903.278.35~1/RELEASE_X86_64 x86_64
compiler info: clang: 11.0.0 (clang-1100.0.33.17)
libc info: no libc information available
$SHELL (typically, interactive shell): /bin/bash
On 2021-05-03 at 17:25:43, Mark Amery wrote:
Attempting to change the case of a folder's name using a command like
`git mv foo FOO` crashes on case-insensitive file systems, like the
default APFS used on Apple Macs.
Here are simple steps to repro this:
$ mkdir testrepo && cd testrepo && git init
Initialized empty Git repository in /Users/markamery/testrepo/.git/
$ mkdir foo && touch foo/bar && git add foo && git commit -m bla
[master (root-commit) a7e9f5f] bla
1 file changed, 0 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
create mode 100644 foo/bar
$ git mv foo FOO
fatal: renaming 'foo' failed: Invalid argument
$ echo $?
128
$ git status
On branch master
nothing to commit, working tree clean
If I create a case-sensitive APFS volume using Disk Utility and try
the commands above on that volume, `git mv foo FOO` works correctly:
it emits no output, exits with a 0 status code, and stages a change
renaming `foo/bar` to `FOO/bar`. However, on my main case-insensitive
volume, `git mv` behaves as shown above: it exits with code 128,
prints an "Invalid argument" error message, and does not stage any
changes.
Yeah, this is because your operating system returns EINVAL in this case.
POSIX specifies EINVAL when you're trying to make a directory a
subdirectory of itself. Which, I mean, I guess is a valid
interpretation here, but it of course makes renaming the path needlessly
difficult.
The command still fails in the same way if you use `git mv --force`
instead of just `git mv`.
Note that previously, `git mv` could not change the case of *file*
names on case-insensitive file systems, until that was fixed in commit
https://github.com/git/git/commit/baa37bff9a845471754d3f47957d58a6ccc30058.
I'm guessing there's a different code path that needs fixing for
changing the case of *folders*.
My guess is this is because when the argument is a directory, the mode
is set to WORKING_DIRECTORY, and then we check that the mode isn't INDEX
and so rename(2) gets called. However, I believe there is a -k option
which should make this work, since we ignore the errors.
I suspect part of the problem here is two fold: on macOS we can't
distinguish an attempt to rename the path due to it folding or
canonicalizing to the same thing from a real attempt to move an actual
directory into itself. The latter would be a problem we'd want to
report, and the former is not. Unfortunately, detecting this is
difficult because that means we'd have to implement the macOS
canonicalization algorithm in Git and we don't want to do that.
Maybe someone who frequently uses a macOS system that uses a
case-sensitive file system can chime in here, but for now, I think -k
should do what you want.
--
brian m. carlson (he/him or they/them)
Houston, Texas, US
On Mon, May 03, 2021 at 06:25:43PM +0100, Mark Amery wrote:
Attempting to change the case of a folder's name using a command like
`git mv foo FOO` crashes on case-insensitive file systems, like the
default APFS used on Apple Macs.
Here are simple steps to repro this:
$ mkdir testrepo && cd testrepo && git init
Initialized empty Git repository in /Users/markamery/testrepo/.git/
$ mkdir foo && touch foo/bar && git add foo && git commit -m bla
[master (root-commit) a7e9f5f] bla
1 file changed, 0 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
create mode 100644 foo/bar
$ git mv foo FOO
fatal: renaming 'foo' failed: Invalid argument
$ echo $?
128
$ git status
On branch master
nothing to commit, working tree clean
If I create a case-sensitive APFS volume using Disk Utility and try
the commands above on that volume, `git mv foo FOO` works correctly:
it emits no output, exits with a 0 status code, and stages a change
renaming `foo/bar` to `FOO/bar`. However, on my main case-insensitive
volume, `git mv` behaves as shown above: it exits with code 128,
prints an "Invalid argument" error message, and does not stage any
changes.
The command still fails in the same way if you use `git mv --force`
instead of just `git mv`.
Note that previously, `git mv` could not change the case of *file*
names on case-insensitive file systems, until that was fixed in commit
https://github.com/git/git/commit/baa37bff9a845471754d3f47957d58a6ccc30058.
I'm guessing there's a different code path that needs fixing for
changing the case of *folders*.
As far as I can tell, this error has never been reported to the Git
mailing list, but it seems to be encountered frequently;
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3011625/git-mv-and-only-change-case-of-directory
mentions this bug and has 86000 views.
In case it's relevant, here's my system info as output by `git bugreport`:
[System Info]
git version:
git version 2.31.1
cpu: x86_64
no commit associated with this build
sizeof-long: 8
sizeof-size_t: 8
shell-path: /bin/sh
uname: Darwin 18.7.0 Darwin Kernel Version 18.7.0: Mon Apr 27
20:09:39 PDT 2020; root:xnu-4903.278.35~1/RELEASE_X86_64 x86_64
compiler info: clang: 11.0.0 (clang-1100.0.33.17)
libc info: no libc information available
$SHELL (typically, interactive shell): /bin/bash
Thanks for reporting - that's always good.
To my undestanding we try to rename
foo/ into FOO/.
But because FOO/ already "exists" as directory,
Git tries to move foo/ into FOO/foo, which fails.
And no, the problem is probably not restricted to MacOs,
Windows and all case-insenstive file systems should show
the same, but I haven't tested yet, so it's more a suspicion.
The following diff allows to move foo/ into FOO/
If someone wants to make a patch out if, that would be good.
diff --git a/builtin/mv.c b/builtin/mv.c
index 3fccdcb6452..fbf184bcfa9 100644
--- a/builtin/mv.c
+++ b/builtin/mv.c
@@ -163,8 +163,10 @@ int cmd_mv(int argc, const char **argv, const char *prefix)
destination = internal_prefix_pathspec(dest_path[0], argv, argc, DUP_BASENAME);
else if (!lstat(dest_path[0], &st) &&
S_ISDIR(st.st_mode)) {
- dest_path[0] = add_slash(dest_path[0]);
- destination = internal_prefix_pathspec(dest_path[0], argv, argc, DUP_BASENAME);
+ if (!ignore_case || strcasecmp(source[0], dest_path[0])) {
+ dest_path[0] = add_slash(dest_path[0]);
+ destination = internal_prefix_pathspec(dest_path[0], argv, argc, DUP_BASENAME);
+ }
} else {
if (argc != 1)
die(_("destination '%s' is not a directory"), dest_path[0]);@@ -187,9 +189,12 @@ int cmd_mv(int argc, const char **argv, const char *prefix)
(dst[length] == 0 || dst[length] == '/')) {
bad = _("can not move directory into itself");
} else if ((src_is_dir = S_ISDIR(st.st_mode))
- && lstat(dst, &st) == 0)
- bad = _("cannot move directory over file");
- else if (src_is_dir) {
+ && lstat(dst, &st) == 0) {
+ if (!ignore_case || strcasecmp(src, dst)){
+ bad = _("cannot move directory over file");
+ }
+ }
+ if (!bad && src_is_dir) {
int first = cache_name_pos(src, length), last;
if (first >= 0)@@ -277,7 +282,7 @@ int cmd_mv(int argc, const char **argv, const char *prefix)
if (mode != INDEX && rename(src, dst) < 0) {
if (ignore_errors)
continue;
- die_errno(_("renaming '%s' failed"), src);
+ die_errno(_("renaming '%s' into '%s' failed"), src, dst);
}
if (submodule_gitfile[i]) {
if (!update_path_in_gitmodules(src, dst))