Re: [RFC PATCH v2 4/4] setup: communicate why a directory is not a valid git directory
flat view
From: Patrick Steinhardt <hidden>
Date: 2026-09-30 16:03:18
On Tue, Sep 29, 2026 at 03:55:10PM +0530, Kaartic Sivaraam wrote:
At the moment, there are a few scenarios in which the error message surrounding an invalid Git repository is a bit blunt: $ GIT_OBJECT_DIRECTORY=/does/not/exist git --git-dir repo.git rev-parse --is-bare-repository fatal: not a git repository: 'repo.git' In this case, even though repo.git is a valid Git repository, we get an output saying it is not since the GIT_OBJECT_DIRECTORY does not point to a valid object directory. At the moment, the user is on their own in figuring this out. Instead, make it more easy for users to figure such issues
s/more easy/easier/
particularly in cases where they have explicitly specified a Git directory. This intends to improve the error reporting UX by clarifying why the specified repository is not considered valid.
Which I think is a good motivation.
We achieve this by means of using the new helper is_git_directory_verbose() that has been introduced. With the same, we get a more helpful error message as follows: $ GIT_OBJECT_DIRECTORY=/does/not/exist git --git-dir repo.git rev-parse --is-bare-repository fatal: not a git repository: 'repo.git' reason: cannot access object directory '/does/not/exist' set via $GIT_OBJECT_DIRECTORY
Having a separate "reason:" line feels a bit off to me, but that may be subjective. I'd have preferred to have it on the same line, or maybe first have "error:" followed by "fatal:".
quoted hunk ↗ jump to hunk
diff --git a/setup.c b/setup.c index a0fb68f7f6..a0d3c0c5bb 100644 --- a/setup.c +++ b/setup.c@@ -1195,6 +1195,7 @@ static void repo_discover_explicit_gitdir(struct repo_discovery *discovery, int *nongit_ok) { const char *work_tree_env = getenv(GIT_WORK_TREE_ENVIRONMENT); + struct strbuf invalid_gitdir_reason = STRBUF_INIT;
Nit, please feel free to ignore: I'd just have called this `errbuf`. Patrick