Re: [PATCH] git: --no-lazy-fetch option

Jeff King [off-list ref] writes:

On Thu, Feb 08, 2024 at 03:17:31PM -0800, Junio C Hamano wrote:

quoted

Sometimes, especially during tests of low level machinery, it is
handy to have a way to disable lazy fetching of objects.  This
allows us to say, for example, "git cat-file -e <object-name>", to
see if the object is locally available.

That seems like a good feature, but...

quoted

@@ -186,6 +187,8 @@ static int handle_options(const char ***argv, int *argc, int *envchanged)
 			use_pager = 0;
 			if (envchanged)
 				*envchanged = 1;
+		} else if (!strcmp(cmd, "--no-lazy-fetch")) {
+			fetch_if_missing = 0;
 		} else if (!strcmp(cmd, "--no-replace-objects")) {
 			disable_replace_refs();
 			setenv(NO_REPLACE_OBJECTS_ENVIRONMENT, "1", 1);

This will only help builtin commands, and even then only the top-level
one. If I run "git --no-lazy-fetch foo" and "foo" is a script or an
alias, I'd expect it to still take effect. Ditto for sub-commands kicked
off by a builtin (say, a "rev-list" connectivity check caused by a
fetch).

So this probably needs to be modeled after --no-replace-objects, etc,
where we set an environment variable that makes it to child processes.

Yuck, I was hoping that we can get away with the tiny change only
for builtins,but you're right.