Re: [PATCH 3/5] setup: defer object database creation

On Tue, Jul 28, 2026 at 04:13:42PM -0500, Justin Tobler wrote:

On 26/07/24 05:48AM, Patrick Steinhardt wrote:

quoted

In a subsequent commit we'll make the creation of the on-disk data
structures of an object database pluggable. This will lead to an
in-between state where we have already configured the repository's
object database, but it's not usable yet until we eventually call
`create_object_directory()`.

Defer the object database creation so that we handle both steps in the
same function.

So IIUC, the repository gets configured via `apply_repository_format()`
which invokes `odb_new()`. In this patch a
APPLY_REPOSITORY_FORMAT_SKIP_ODB_CREATION flag is introduced to allow
the creation of the ODB to be delayed until after source specific
on-disk state has been created.

Naive question: would it be simpler to just require invoking `odb_new()`
explicitly after `apply_repository_format()` in all cases? There doesn't
appear to be too many callsites.

I don't think it would, mostly because the logic to figure out the
object directory and the alternate object directory requires a bunch of
logic.

I think it'll ultimately become simpler though once we move into the
direction of what we've discussed in [1], where we said that we want to
move handling of those environment variables into the "files" backend,
too. And then it might make sense to revisit this.

Patrick