Re: [PATCH 3/5] cat-file: disable refs/replace with --batch-all-objects

On 10/5/2021 4:36 PM, Jeff King wrote:

When we're enumerating all objects in the object database, it doesn't
make sense to respect refs/replace. The point of this option is to
enumerate all of the objects in the database at a low level. By
definition we'd already show the replacement object's contents (under
its real oid), and showing those contents under another oid is almost
certainly working against what the user is trying to do.

...

So it has worked reliably this way for over 7 years, and we should make
sure it continues to do so. That could also be an argument that
--batch-all-objects should not change behavior (which this patch is
doing), but I really consider the current behavior to be an unintended
bug. It's a side effect of how the code is implemented (feeding the oids
back into oid_object_info() rather than looking at what we found while
reading the loose and packed object storage).

I'm with you on thinking this is a bug.

The implementation is straight-forward: we just disable the global
read_replace_refs flag when we're in --batch-all-objects mode. It would
perhaps be a little cleaner to change the flag we pass to
oid_object_info_extended(), but that's not enough. We also read objects
via read_object_file() and stream_blob_to_fd(). The former could switch
to its _extended() form, but the streaming code has no mechanism for
disabling replace refs. Setting the global flag works, and as a bonus,
it's impossible to have any "oops, we're sometimes replacing the object
and sometimes not" bugs in the output (like the ones caused by
98e2092b50 above).

...

Reading between the lines, you might guess that I also introduced a
"whoops, our size/content do not match" bug while trying the other
approach. ;)

I understand this perspective. Turning the feature off is the only
way to be sure.

Patch makes sense. I just wanted to :+1: your reasoning.

Thanks,
-Stolee