git/t/t7012-skip-worktree-writing.sh

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#!/bin/sh
#
# Copyright (c) 2008 Nguyễn Thái Ngọc Duy
#
test_description='test worktree writing operations when skip-worktree is used'
. ./test-lib.sh
test_expect_success 'setup' '
test_commit init &&
echo modified >> init.t &&
touch added &&
git add init.t added &&
git commit -m "modified and added" &&
git tag top
'
test_expect_success 'read-tree updates worktree, absent case' '
git checkout -f top &&
git update-index --skip-worktree init.t &&
rm init.t &&
git read-tree -m -u HEAD^ &&
echo init > expected &&
test_cmp expected init.t
'
test_expect_success 'read-tree updates worktree, dirty case' '
git checkout -f top &&
git update-index --skip-worktree init.t &&
echo dirty >> init.t &&
test_must_fail git read-tree -m -u HEAD^ &&
grep -q dirty init.t &&
test "$(git ls-files -t init.t)" = "S init.t" &&
git update-index --no-skip-worktree init.t
'
test_expect_success 'read-tree removes worktree, absent case' '
git checkout -f top &&
git update-index --skip-worktree added &&
rm added &&
git read-tree -m -u HEAD^ &&
test ! -f added
'
test_expect_success 'read-tree removes worktree, dirty case' '
git checkout -f top &&
git update-index --skip-worktree added &&
echo dirty >> added &&
test_must_fail git read-tree -m -u HEAD^ &&
grep -q dirty added &&
test "$(git ls-files -t added)" = "S added" &&
git update-index --no-skip-worktree added
'
setup_absent() {
test -f 1 && rm 1
git update-index --remove 1 &&
git update-index --add --cacheinfo 100644 $EMPTY_BLOB 1 &&
git update-index --skip-worktree 1
}
setup_dirty() {
git update-index --force-remove 1 &&
echo dirty > 1 &&
git update-index --add --cacheinfo 100644 $EMPTY_BLOB 1 &&
git update-index --skip-worktree 1
}
test_dirty() {
echo "100644 $EMPTY_BLOB 0 1" > expected &&
git ls-files --stage 1 > result &&
test_cmp expected result &&
echo dirty > expected
test_cmp expected 1
}
cat >expected <<EOF
S 1
H 2
H init.t
S sub/1
H sub/2
EOF
test_expect_success 'index setup' '
git checkout -f init &&
mkdir sub &&
touch ./1 ./2 sub/1 sub/2 &&
git add 1 2 sub/1 sub/2 &&
git update-index --skip-worktree 1 sub/1 &&
git ls-files -t > result &&
test_cmp expected result
'
test_expect_success 'git-rm fails if worktree is dirty' '
setup_dirty &&
test_must_fail git rm 1 &&
test_dirty
'
cat >expected <<EOF
Would remove expected
Would remove result
EOF
test_expect_success 'git-clean, absent case' '
setup_absent &&
git clean -n > result &&
test_cmp expected result
'
test_expect_success 'git-clean, dirty case' '
setup_dirty &&
git clean -n > result &&
test_cmp expected result
'
test_expect_success '--ignore-skip-worktree-entries leaves worktree alone' '
test_commit keep-me &&
git update-index --skip-worktree keep-me.t &&
rm keep-me.t &&
: ignoring the worktree &&
git update-index --remove --ignore-skip-worktree-entries keep-me.t &&
git diff-index --cached --exit-code HEAD &&
: not ignoring the worktree, a deletion is staged &&
git update-index --remove keep-me.t &&
test_must_fail git diff-index --cached --exit-code HEAD \
--diff-filter=D -- keep-me.t
'
stash: fix stash application in sparse-checkouts sparse-checkouts are built on the patterns in the $GIT_DIR/info/sparse-checkout file, where commands have modified behavior for paths that do not match those patterns. The differences in behavior, as far as the bugs concerned here, fall into three different categories (with git subcommands that fall into each category listed): * commands that only look at files matching the patterns: * status * diff * clean * update-index * commands that remove files from the working tree that do not match the patterns, and restore files that do match them: * read-tree * switch * checkout * reset (--hard) * commands that omit writing files to the working tree that do not match the patterns, unless those files are not clean: * merge * rebase * cherry-pick * revert There are some caveats above, e.g. a plain `git diff` ignores files outside the sparsity patterns but will show diffs for paths outside the sparsity patterns when revision arguments are passed. (Technically, diff is treating the sparse paths as matching HEAD.) So, there is some internal inconsistency among these commands. There are also additional commands that should behave differently in the face of sparse-checkouts, as the sparse-checkout documentation alludes to, but the above is sufficient for me to explain how `git stash` is affected. What is relevant here is that logically 'stash' should behave like a merge; it three-way merges the changes the user had in progress at stash creation time, the HEAD at the time the stash was created, and the current HEAD, in order to get the stashed changes applied to the current branch. However, this simplistic view doesn't quite work in practice, because stash tweaks it a bit due to two factors: (1) flags like --keep-index and --include-untracked (why we used two different verbs, 'keep' and 'include', is a rant for another day) modify what should be staged at the end and include more things that should be quasi-merged, (2) stash generally wants changes to NOT be staged. It only provides exceptions when (a) some of the changes had conflicts and thus we want to use stages to denote the clean merges and higher order stages to mark the conflicts, or (b) if there is a brand new file we don't want it to become untracked. stash has traditionally gotten this special behavior by first doing a merge, and then when it's clean, applying a pipeline of commands to modify the result. This series of commands for unstaging-non-newly-added-files came from the following commands: git diff-index --cached --name-only --diff-filter=A $CTREE >"$a" git read-tree --reset $CTREE git update-index --add --stdin <"$a" rm -f "$a" Looking back at the different types of special sparsity handling listed at the beginning of this message, you may note that we have at least one of each type covered here: merge, diff-index, and read-tree. The weird mix-and-match led to 3 different bugs: (1) If a path merged cleanly and it didn't match the sparsity patterns, the merge backend would know to avoid writing it to the working tree and keep the SKIP_WORKTREE bit, simply only updating it in the index. Unfortunately, the subsequent commands would essentially undo the changes in the index and thus simply toss the changes altogether since there was nothing left in the working tree. This means the stash is only partially applied. (2) If a path existed in the worktree before `git stash apply` despite having the SKIP_WORKTREE bit set, then the `git read-tree --reset` would print an error message of the form error: Entry 'modified' not uptodate. Cannot merge. and cause stash to abort early. (3) If there was a brand new file added by the stash, then the diff-index command would save that pathname to the temporary file, the read-tree --reset would remove it from the index, and the update-index command would barf due to no such file being present in the working copy; it would print a message of the form: error: NEWFILE: does not exist and --remove not passed fatal: Unable to process path NEWFILE and then cause stash to abort early. Basically, the whole idea of unstage-unless-brand-new requires special care when you are dealing with a sparse-checkout. Fix these problems by applying the following simple rule: When we unstage files, if they have the SKIP_WORKTREE bit set, clear that bit and write the file out to the working directory. (*) If there's already a file present in the way, rename it first. This fixes all three problems in t7012.13 and allows us to mark it as passing. Signed-off-by: Elijah Newren <newren@gmail.com> Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
2020-12-01 22:25:18 +00:00
test_expect_success 'stash restore in sparse checkout' '
test_create_repo stash-restore &&
(
cd stash-restore &&
mkdir subdir &&
echo A >subdir/A &&
echo untouched >untouched &&
echo removeme >removeme &&
echo modified >modified &&
git add . &&
git commit -m Initial &&
echo AA >>subdir/A &&
echo addme >addme &&
echo tweaked >>modified &&
rm removeme &&
git add addme &&
git stash push &&
git sparse-checkout set --no-cone subdir &&
# Ensure after sparse-checkout we only have expected files
cat >expect <<-EOF &&
S modified
S removeme
H subdir/A
S untouched
EOF
git ls-files -t >actual &&
test_cmp expect actual &&
test_path_is_missing addme &&
test_path_is_missing modified &&
test_path_is_missing removeme &&
test_path_is_file subdir/A &&
test_path_is_missing untouched &&
# Put a file in the working directory in the way
echo in the way >modified &&
repo_read_index: clear SKIP_WORKTREE bit from files present in worktree The fix is short (~30 lines), but the description is not. Sorry. There is a set of problems caused by files in what I'll refer to as the "present-despite-SKIP_WORKTREE" state. This commit aims to not just fix these problems, but remove the entire class as a possibility -- for those using sparse checkouts. But first, we need to understand the problems this class presents. A quick outline: * Problems * User facing issues * Problem space complexity * Maintenance and code correctness challenges * SKIP_WORKTREE expectations in Git * Suggested solution * Pros/Cons of suggested solution * Notes on testcase modifications === User facing issues === There are various ways for users to get files to be present in the working copy despite having the SKIP_WORKTREE bit set for that file in the index. This may come from: * various git commands not really supporting the SKIP_WORKTREE bit[1,2] * users grabbing files from elsewhere and writing them to the worktree (perhaps even cached in their editor) * users attempting to "abort" a sparse-checkout operation with a not-so-early Ctrl+C (updating $GIT_DIR/info/sparse-checkout and the working tree is not atomic)[3]. Once users have present-despite-SKIP_WORKTREE files, any modifications users make to these files will be ignored, possibly to users' confusion. Further: * these files will degrade performance for the sparse-index case due to requiring the index to be expanded (see commit 55dfcf9591 ("sparse-checkout: clear tracked sparse dirs", 2021-09-08) for why we try to delete entire directories outside the sparse cone). * these files will not be updated by by standard commands (switch/checkout/pull/merge/rebase will leave them alone unless conflicts happen -- and even then, the conflicted file may be written somewhere else to avoid overwriting the SKIP_WORKTREE file that is present and in the way) * there is nothing in Git that users can use to discover such files (status, diff, grep, etc. all ignore it) * there is no reasonable mechanism to "recover" from such a condition (neither `git sparse-checkout reapply` nor `git reset --hard` will correct it). So, not only are users modifications ignored, but the files get progressively more stale over time. At some point in the future, they may change their sparseness specification or disable sparse-checkouts. At that time, all present-despite-SKIP_WORKTREE files will show up as having lots of modifications because they represent a version from a different branch or commit. These might include user-made local changes from days before, but the only way to tell is to have users look through them all closely. If these users come to others for help, there will be no logs that explain the issue; it's just a mysterious list of changes. Users might adamantly claim (correctly, as it turns out) that they didn't modify these files, while others presume they did. [1] https://lore.kernel.org/git/xmqqbmb1a7ga.fsf@gitster-ct.c.googlers.com/ [2] https://lore.kernel.org/git/CABPp-BH9tju7WVm=QZDOvaMDdZbpNXrVWQdN-jmfN8wC6YVhmw@mail.gmail.com/ [3] https://lore.kernel.org/git/CABPp-BFnFpzwGC11TLoLs8YK5yiisA5D5-fFjXnJsbESVDwZsA@mail.gmail.com/ === Problem space complexity === SKIP_WORKTREE has been part of Git for over a decade. Duy did lots of work on it initially, and several others have since come along and put lots of work into it. Stolee spent most of 2021 on the sparse-index, with lots of bugfixes along the way including to non-sparse-index cases as we are still trying to get sparse checkouts to behave reasonably. Basically every codepath throughout the treat needs to be aware of an additional type of file: tracked-but-not-present. The extra type results in lots of extra testcases and lots of extra code everywhere. But, the sad thing is that we actually have more than one extra type. We have tracked, tracked-but-not-present (SKIP_WORKTREE), and tracked-but-promised-to-not-be-present-but-is-present-anyway (present-despite-SKIP_WORKTREE). Two types is a monumental amount of effort to support, and adding a third feels a bit like insanity[4]. [4] Some examples of which can be seen at https://lore.kernel.org/git/CABPp-BGJ_Nvi5TmgriD9Bh6eNXE2EDq2f8e8QKXAeYG3BxZafA@mail.gmail.com/ === Maintenance and code correctness challenges === Matheus' patches to grep stalled for nearly a year, in part because of complications of how to handle sparse-checkouts appropriately in all cases[5][6] (with trying to sanely figure out how to sanely handle present-despite-SKIP_WORKTREE files being one of the complications). His rm/add follow-ups also took months because of those kinds of issues[7]. The corner cases with things like submodules and SKIP_WORKTREE with the addition of present-despite-SKIP_WORKTREE start becoming really complex[8]. We've had to add ugly logic to merge-ort to attempt to handle present-despite-SKIP_WORKTREE files[9], and basically just been forced to give up in merge-recursive knowing full well that we'll sometimes silently discard user modifications. Despite stash essentially being a merge, it needed extra code (beyond what was in merge-ort and merge-recursive) to manually tweak SKIP_WORKTREE bits in order to avoid a few different bugs that'd result in an early abort with a partial stash application[10]. [5] See https://lore.kernel.org/git/5f3f7ac77039d41d1692ceae4b0c5df3bb45b74a.1612901326.git.matheus.bernardino@usp.br/#t and the dates on the thread; also Matheus and I had several conversations off-list trying to resolve the issues over that time [6] ...it finally kind of got unstuck after https://lore.kernel.org/git/CABPp-BGJ_Nvi5TmgriD9Bh6eNXE2EDq2f8e8QKXAeYG3BxZafA@mail.gmail.com/ [7] See for example https://lore.kernel.org/git/CABPp-BHwNoVnooqDFPAsZxBT9aR5Dwk5D9sDRCvYSb8akxAJgA@mail.gmail.com/#t and quotes like "The core functionality of sparse-checkout has always been only partially implemented", a statement I still believe is true today. [8] https://lore.kernel.org/git/pull.809.git.git.1592356884310.gitgitgadget@gmail.com/ [9] See commit 66b209b86a ("merge-ort: implement CE_SKIP_WORKTREE handling with conflicted entries", 2021-03-20) [10] See commit ba359fd507 ("stash: fix stash application in sparse-checkouts", 2020-12-01) === SKIP_WORKTREE expectations in Git === A couple quotes: * From [11] (before the "sparse-checkout" command existed): If it needs too many special cases, hacks, and conditionals, then it is not worth the complexity---if it is easier to write a correct code by allowing Git to populate working tree files, it is perfectly fine to do so. In a sense, the sparse checkout "feature" itself is a hack by itself, and that is why I think this part should be "best effort" as well. * From the git-sparse-checkout manual (still present today): THIS COMMAND IS EXPERIMENTAL. ITS BEHAVIOR, AND THE BEHAVIOR OF OTHER COMMANDS IN THE PRESENCE OF SPARSE-CHECKOUTS, WILL LIKELY CHANGE IN THE FUTURE. [11] https://lore.kernel.org/git/xmqqbmb1a7ga.fsf@gitster-ct.c.googlers.com/ === Suggested solution === SKIP_WORKTREE was written to allow sparse-checkouts, in particular, as the name of the option implies, to allow the file to NOT be in the worktree but consider it to be unchanged rather than deleted. The suggests a simple solution: present-despite-SKIP_WORKTREE files should not exist, for those using sparse-checkouts. Enforce this at index loading time by checking if core.sparseCheckout is true; if so, check files in the index with the SKIP_WORKTREE bit set to verify that they are absent from the working tree. If they are present, unset the bit (in memory, though any commands that write to the index will record the update). Users can, of course, can get the SKIP_WORKTREE bit back such as by running `git sparse-checkout reapply` (if they have ensured the file is unmodified and doesn't match the specified sparsity patterns). === Pros/Cons of suggested solution === Pros: * Solves the user visible problems reported above, which I've been complaining about for nearly a year but couldn't find a solution to. * Helps prevent slow performance degradation with a sparse-index. * Much easier behavior in sparse-checkouts for users to reason about * Very simple, ~30 lines of code. * Significantly simplifies some ugly testcases, and obviates the need to test an entire class of potential issues. * Reduces code complexity, reasoning, and maintenance. Avoids disagreements about weird corner cases[12]. * It has been reported that some users might be (ab)using SKIP_WORKTREE as a let-me-modify-but-keep-the-file-in-the-worktree mechanism[13, and a few other similar references]. These users know of multiple caveats and shortcomings in doing so; perhaps not surprising given the "SKIP_WORKTREE expecations" section above. However, these users use `git update-index --skip-worktree`, and not `git sparse-checkout` or core.sparseCheckout=true. As such, these users would be unaffected by this change and can continue abusing the system as before. [12] https://lore.kernel.org/git/CABPp-BH9tju7WVm=QZDOvaMDdZbpNXrVWQdN-jmfN8wC6YVhmw@mail.gmail.com/ [13] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/13630849/git-difference-between-assume-unchanged-and-skip-worktree Cons: * When core.sparseCheckout is enabled, this adds a performance cost to reading the index. I'll defer discussion of this cost to a subsequent patch, since I have some optimizations to add. === Notes on testcase modifications === The good: * t1011: Compare to two cases above it ('read-tree will not throw away dirty changes, non-sparse'); since the file is present, it should match the non-sparse case now * t1092: sparse-index & sparse-checkout now match full-worktree behavior in more cases! Yaay for consistency! * t6428, t7012: look at how much simpler the tests become! Merge and stash can just fail early telling the user there's a file in the way, instead of not noticing until it's about to write a file and then have to implement sudden crash avoidance. Hurray for sanity! * t7817: sparse behavior better matches full tree behavior. Hurray for sanity! The confusing: * t3705: These changes were ONLY needed on Windows, but they don't hurt other platforms. Let's discuss each individually: * core.sparseCheckout should be false by default. Nothing in this testcase toggles that until many, many tests later. However, early tests (#5 in particular) were testing `update-index --skip-worktree` behavior in a non-sparse-checkout, but the Windows tests in CI were behaving as if core.sparseCheckout=true had been specified somewhere. I do not have access to a Windows machine. But I just manually did what should have been a no-op and turned the config off. And it fixed the test. * I have no idea why the leftover .gitattributes file from this test was causing failures for test #18 on Windows, but only with these changes of mine. Test #18 was checking for empty stderr, and specifically wanted to know that some error completely unrelated to file endings did not appear. The leftover .gitattributes file thus caused some spurious stderr unrelated to the thing being checked. Since other tests did not intend to test normalization, just proactively remove the .gitattributes file. I'm certain this is cleaner and better, I'm just unsure why/how this didn't trigger problems before. Signed-off-by: Elijah Newren <newren@gmail.com> Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
2022-01-14 15:59:41 +00:00
test_must_fail git stash apply 2>error&&
repo_read_index: clear SKIP_WORKTREE bit from files present in worktree The fix is short (~30 lines), but the description is not. Sorry. There is a set of problems caused by files in what I'll refer to as the "present-despite-SKIP_WORKTREE" state. This commit aims to not just fix these problems, but remove the entire class as a possibility -- for those using sparse checkouts. But first, we need to understand the problems this class presents. A quick outline: * Problems * User facing issues * Problem space complexity * Maintenance and code correctness challenges * SKIP_WORKTREE expectations in Git * Suggested solution * Pros/Cons of suggested solution * Notes on testcase modifications === User facing issues === There are various ways for users to get files to be present in the working copy despite having the SKIP_WORKTREE bit set for that file in the index. This may come from: * various git commands not really supporting the SKIP_WORKTREE bit[1,2] * users grabbing files from elsewhere and writing them to the worktree (perhaps even cached in their editor) * users attempting to "abort" a sparse-checkout operation with a not-so-early Ctrl+C (updating $GIT_DIR/info/sparse-checkout and the working tree is not atomic)[3]. Once users have present-despite-SKIP_WORKTREE files, any modifications users make to these files will be ignored, possibly to users' confusion. Further: * these files will degrade performance for the sparse-index case due to requiring the index to be expanded (see commit 55dfcf9591 ("sparse-checkout: clear tracked sparse dirs", 2021-09-08) for why we try to delete entire directories outside the sparse cone). * these files will not be updated by by standard commands (switch/checkout/pull/merge/rebase will leave them alone unless conflicts happen -- and even then, the conflicted file may be written somewhere else to avoid overwriting the SKIP_WORKTREE file that is present and in the way) * there is nothing in Git that users can use to discover such files (status, diff, grep, etc. all ignore it) * there is no reasonable mechanism to "recover" from such a condition (neither `git sparse-checkout reapply` nor `git reset --hard` will correct it). So, not only are users modifications ignored, but the files get progressively more stale over time. At some point in the future, they may change their sparseness specification or disable sparse-checkouts. At that time, all present-despite-SKIP_WORKTREE files will show up as having lots of modifications because they represent a version from a different branch or commit. These might include user-made local changes from days before, but the only way to tell is to have users look through them all closely. If these users come to others for help, there will be no logs that explain the issue; it's just a mysterious list of changes. Users might adamantly claim (correctly, as it turns out) that they didn't modify these files, while others presume they did. [1] https://lore.kernel.org/git/xmqqbmb1a7ga.fsf@gitster-ct.c.googlers.com/ [2] https://lore.kernel.org/git/CABPp-BH9tju7WVm=QZDOvaMDdZbpNXrVWQdN-jmfN8wC6YVhmw@mail.gmail.com/ [3] https://lore.kernel.org/git/CABPp-BFnFpzwGC11TLoLs8YK5yiisA5D5-fFjXnJsbESVDwZsA@mail.gmail.com/ === Problem space complexity === SKIP_WORKTREE has been part of Git for over a decade. Duy did lots of work on it initially, and several others have since come along and put lots of work into it. Stolee spent most of 2021 on the sparse-index, with lots of bugfixes along the way including to non-sparse-index cases as we are still trying to get sparse checkouts to behave reasonably. Basically every codepath throughout the treat needs to be aware of an additional type of file: tracked-but-not-present. The extra type results in lots of extra testcases and lots of extra code everywhere. But, the sad thing is that we actually have more than one extra type. We have tracked, tracked-but-not-present (SKIP_WORKTREE), and tracked-but-promised-to-not-be-present-but-is-present-anyway (present-despite-SKIP_WORKTREE). Two types is a monumental amount of effort to support, and adding a third feels a bit like insanity[4]. [4] Some examples of which can be seen at https://lore.kernel.org/git/CABPp-BGJ_Nvi5TmgriD9Bh6eNXE2EDq2f8e8QKXAeYG3BxZafA@mail.gmail.com/ === Maintenance and code correctness challenges === Matheus' patches to grep stalled for nearly a year, in part because of complications of how to handle sparse-checkouts appropriately in all cases[5][6] (with trying to sanely figure out how to sanely handle present-despite-SKIP_WORKTREE files being one of the complications). His rm/add follow-ups also took months because of those kinds of issues[7]. The corner cases with things like submodules and SKIP_WORKTREE with the addition of present-despite-SKIP_WORKTREE start becoming really complex[8]. We've had to add ugly logic to merge-ort to attempt to handle present-despite-SKIP_WORKTREE files[9], and basically just been forced to give up in merge-recursive knowing full well that we'll sometimes silently discard user modifications. Despite stash essentially being a merge, it needed extra code (beyond what was in merge-ort and merge-recursive) to manually tweak SKIP_WORKTREE bits in order to avoid a few different bugs that'd result in an early abort with a partial stash application[10]. [5] See https://lore.kernel.org/git/5f3f7ac77039d41d1692ceae4b0c5df3bb45b74a.1612901326.git.matheus.bernardino@usp.br/#t and the dates on the thread; also Matheus and I had several conversations off-list trying to resolve the issues over that time [6] ...it finally kind of got unstuck after https://lore.kernel.org/git/CABPp-BGJ_Nvi5TmgriD9Bh6eNXE2EDq2f8e8QKXAeYG3BxZafA@mail.gmail.com/ [7] See for example https://lore.kernel.org/git/CABPp-BHwNoVnooqDFPAsZxBT9aR5Dwk5D9sDRCvYSb8akxAJgA@mail.gmail.com/#t and quotes like "The core functionality of sparse-checkout has always been only partially implemented", a statement I still believe is true today. [8] https://lore.kernel.org/git/pull.809.git.git.1592356884310.gitgitgadget@gmail.com/ [9] See commit 66b209b86a ("merge-ort: implement CE_SKIP_WORKTREE handling with conflicted entries", 2021-03-20) [10] See commit ba359fd507 ("stash: fix stash application in sparse-checkouts", 2020-12-01) === SKIP_WORKTREE expectations in Git === A couple quotes: * From [11] (before the "sparse-checkout" command existed): If it needs too many special cases, hacks, and conditionals, then it is not worth the complexity---if it is easier to write a correct code by allowing Git to populate working tree files, it is perfectly fine to do so. In a sense, the sparse checkout "feature" itself is a hack by itself, and that is why I think this part should be "best effort" as well. * From the git-sparse-checkout manual (still present today): THIS COMMAND IS EXPERIMENTAL. ITS BEHAVIOR, AND THE BEHAVIOR OF OTHER COMMANDS IN THE PRESENCE OF SPARSE-CHECKOUTS, WILL LIKELY CHANGE IN THE FUTURE. [11] https://lore.kernel.org/git/xmqqbmb1a7ga.fsf@gitster-ct.c.googlers.com/ === Suggested solution === SKIP_WORKTREE was written to allow sparse-checkouts, in particular, as the name of the option implies, to allow the file to NOT be in the worktree but consider it to be unchanged rather than deleted. The suggests a simple solution: present-despite-SKIP_WORKTREE files should not exist, for those using sparse-checkouts. Enforce this at index loading time by checking if core.sparseCheckout is true; if so, check files in the index with the SKIP_WORKTREE bit set to verify that they are absent from the working tree. If they are present, unset the bit (in memory, though any commands that write to the index will record the update). Users can, of course, can get the SKIP_WORKTREE bit back such as by running `git sparse-checkout reapply` (if they have ensured the file is unmodified and doesn't match the specified sparsity patterns). === Pros/Cons of suggested solution === Pros: * Solves the user visible problems reported above, which I've been complaining about for nearly a year but couldn't find a solution to. * Helps prevent slow performance degradation with a sparse-index. * Much easier behavior in sparse-checkouts for users to reason about * Very simple, ~30 lines of code. * Significantly simplifies some ugly testcases, and obviates the need to test an entire class of potential issues. * Reduces code complexity, reasoning, and maintenance. Avoids disagreements about weird corner cases[12]. * It has been reported that some users might be (ab)using SKIP_WORKTREE as a let-me-modify-but-keep-the-file-in-the-worktree mechanism[13, and a few other similar references]. These users know of multiple caveats and shortcomings in doing so; perhaps not surprising given the "SKIP_WORKTREE expecations" section above. However, these users use `git update-index --skip-worktree`, and not `git sparse-checkout` or core.sparseCheckout=true. As such, these users would be unaffected by this change and can continue abusing the system as before. [12] https://lore.kernel.org/git/CABPp-BH9tju7WVm=QZDOvaMDdZbpNXrVWQdN-jmfN8wC6YVhmw@mail.gmail.com/ [13] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/13630849/git-difference-between-assume-unchanged-and-skip-worktree Cons: * When core.sparseCheckout is enabled, this adds a performance cost to reading the index. I'll defer discussion of this cost to a subsequent patch, since I have some optimizations to add. === Notes on testcase modifications === The good: * t1011: Compare to two cases above it ('read-tree will not throw away dirty changes, non-sparse'); since the file is present, it should match the non-sparse case now * t1092: sparse-index & sparse-checkout now match full-worktree behavior in more cases! Yaay for consistency! * t6428, t7012: look at how much simpler the tests become! Merge and stash can just fail early telling the user there's a file in the way, instead of not noticing until it's about to write a file and then have to implement sudden crash avoidance. Hurray for sanity! * t7817: sparse behavior better matches full tree behavior. Hurray for sanity! The confusing: * t3705: These changes were ONLY needed on Windows, but they don't hurt other platforms. Let's discuss each individually: * core.sparseCheckout should be false by default. Nothing in this testcase toggles that until many, many tests later. However, early tests (#5 in particular) were testing `update-index --skip-worktree` behavior in a non-sparse-checkout, but the Windows tests in CI were behaving as if core.sparseCheckout=true had been specified somewhere. I do not have access to a Windows machine. But I just manually did what should have been a no-op and turned the config off. And it fixed the test. * I have no idea why the leftover .gitattributes file from this test was causing failures for test #18 on Windows, but only with these changes of mine. Test #18 was checking for empty stderr, and specifically wanted to know that some error completely unrelated to file endings did not appear. The leftover .gitattributes file thus caused some spurious stderr unrelated to the thing being checked. Since other tests did not intend to test normalization, just proactively remove the .gitattributes file. I'm certain this is cleaner and better, I'm just unsure why/how this didn't trigger problems before. Signed-off-by: Elijah Newren <newren@gmail.com> Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
2022-01-14 15:59:41 +00:00
grep "changes.*would be overwritten by merge" error &&
repo_read_index: clear SKIP_WORKTREE bit from files present in worktree The fix is short (~30 lines), but the description is not. Sorry. There is a set of problems caused by files in what I'll refer to as the "present-despite-SKIP_WORKTREE" state. This commit aims to not just fix these problems, but remove the entire class as a possibility -- for those using sparse checkouts. But first, we need to understand the problems this class presents. A quick outline: * Problems * User facing issues * Problem space complexity * Maintenance and code correctness challenges * SKIP_WORKTREE expectations in Git * Suggested solution * Pros/Cons of suggested solution * Notes on testcase modifications === User facing issues === There are various ways for users to get files to be present in the working copy despite having the SKIP_WORKTREE bit set for that file in the index. This may come from: * various git commands not really supporting the SKIP_WORKTREE bit[1,2] * users grabbing files from elsewhere and writing them to the worktree (perhaps even cached in their editor) * users attempting to "abort" a sparse-checkout operation with a not-so-early Ctrl+C (updating $GIT_DIR/info/sparse-checkout and the working tree is not atomic)[3]. Once users have present-despite-SKIP_WORKTREE files, any modifications users make to these files will be ignored, possibly to users' confusion. Further: * these files will degrade performance for the sparse-index case due to requiring the index to be expanded (see commit 55dfcf9591 ("sparse-checkout: clear tracked sparse dirs", 2021-09-08) for why we try to delete entire directories outside the sparse cone). * these files will not be updated by by standard commands (switch/checkout/pull/merge/rebase will leave them alone unless conflicts happen -- and even then, the conflicted file may be written somewhere else to avoid overwriting the SKIP_WORKTREE file that is present and in the way) * there is nothing in Git that users can use to discover such files (status, diff, grep, etc. all ignore it) * there is no reasonable mechanism to "recover" from such a condition (neither `git sparse-checkout reapply` nor `git reset --hard` will correct it). So, not only are users modifications ignored, but the files get progressively more stale over time. At some point in the future, they may change their sparseness specification or disable sparse-checkouts. At that time, all present-despite-SKIP_WORKTREE files will show up as having lots of modifications because they represent a version from a different branch or commit. These might include user-made local changes from days before, but the only way to tell is to have users look through them all closely. If these users come to others for help, there will be no logs that explain the issue; it's just a mysterious list of changes. Users might adamantly claim (correctly, as it turns out) that they didn't modify these files, while others presume they did. [1] https://lore.kernel.org/git/xmqqbmb1a7ga.fsf@gitster-ct.c.googlers.com/ [2] https://lore.kernel.org/git/CABPp-BH9tju7WVm=QZDOvaMDdZbpNXrVWQdN-jmfN8wC6YVhmw@mail.gmail.com/ [3] https://lore.kernel.org/git/CABPp-BFnFpzwGC11TLoLs8YK5yiisA5D5-fFjXnJsbESVDwZsA@mail.gmail.com/ === Problem space complexity === SKIP_WORKTREE has been part of Git for over a decade. Duy did lots of work on it initially, and several others have since come along and put lots of work into it. Stolee spent most of 2021 on the sparse-index, with lots of bugfixes along the way including to non-sparse-index cases as we are still trying to get sparse checkouts to behave reasonably. Basically every codepath throughout the treat needs to be aware of an additional type of file: tracked-but-not-present. The extra type results in lots of extra testcases and lots of extra code everywhere. But, the sad thing is that we actually have more than one extra type. We have tracked, tracked-but-not-present (SKIP_WORKTREE), and tracked-but-promised-to-not-be-present-but-is-present-anyway (present-despite-SKIP_WORKTREE). Two types is a monumental amount of effort to support, and adding a third feels a bit like insanity[4]. [4] Some examples of which can be seen at https://lore.kernel.org/git/CABPp-BGJ_Nvi5TmgriD9Bh6eNXE2EDq2f8e8QKXAeYG3BxZafA@mail.gmail.com/ === Maintenance and code correctness challenges === Matheus' patches to grep stalled for nearly a year, in part because of complications of how to handle sparse-checkouts appropriately in all cases[5][6] (with trying to sanely figure out how to sanely handle present-despite-SKIP_WORKTREE files being one of the complications). His rm/add follow-ups also took months because of those kinds of issues[7]. The corner cases with things like submodules and SKIP_WORKTREE with the addition of present-despite-SKIP_WORKTREE start becoming really complex[8]. We've had to add ugly logic to merge-ort to attempt to handle present-despite-SKIP_WORKTREE files[9], and basically just been forced to give up in merge-recursive knowing full well that we'll sometimes silently discard user modifications. Despite stash essentially being a merge, it needed extra code (beyond what was in merge-ort and merge-recursive) to manually tweak SKIP_WORKTREE bits in order to avoid a few different bugs that'd result in an early abort with a partial stash application[10]. [5] See https://lore.kernel.org/git/5f3f7ac77039d41d1692ceae4b0c5df3bb45b74a.1612901326.git.matheus.bernardino@usp.br/#t and the dates on the thread; also Matheus and I had several conversations off-list trying to resolve the issues over that time [6] ...it finally kind of got unstuck after https://lore.kernel.org/git/CABPp-BGJ_Nvi5TmgriD9Bh6eNXE2EDq2f8e8QKXAeYG3BxZafA@mail.gmail.com/ [7] See for example https://lore.kernel.org/git/CABPp-BHwNoVnooqDFPAsZxBT9aR5Dwk5D9sDRCvYSb8akxAJgA@mail.gmail.com/#t and quotes like "The core functionality of sparse-checkout has always been only partially implemented", a statement I still believe is true today. [8] https://lore.kernel.org/git/pull.809.git.git.1592356884310.gitgitgadget@gmail.com/ [9] See commit 66b209b86a ("merge-ort: implement CE_SKIP_WORKTREE handling with conflicted entries", 2021-03-20) [10] See commit ba359fd507 ("stash: fix stash application in sparse-checkouts", 2020-12-01) === SKIP_WORKTREE expectations in Git === A couple quotes: * From [11] (before the "sparse-checkout" command existed): If it needs too many special cases, hacks, and conditionals, then it is not worth the complexity---if it is easier to write a correct code by allowing Git to populate working tree files, it is perfectly fine to do so. In a sense, the sparse checkout "feature" itself is a hack by itself, and that is why I think this part should be "best effort" as well. * From the git-sparse-checkout manual (still present today): THIS COMMAND IS EXPERIMENTAL. ITS BEHAVIOR, AND THE BEHAVIOR OF OTHER COMMANDS IN THE PRESENCE OF SPARSE-CHECKOUTS, WILL LIKELY CHANGE IN THE FUTURE. [11] https://lore.kernel.org/git/xmqqbmb1a7ga.fsf@gitster-ct.c.googlers.com/ === Suggested solution === SKIP_WORKTREE was written to allow sparse-checkouts, in particular, as the name of the option implies, to allow the file to NOT be in the worktree but consider it to be unchanged rather than deleted. The suggests a simple solution: present-despite-SKIP_WORKTREE files should not exist, for those using sparse-checkouts. Enforce this at index loading time by checking if core.sparseCheckout is true; if so, check files in the index with the SKIP_WORKTREE bit set to verify that they are absent from the working tree. If they are present, unset the bit (in memory, though any commands that write to the index will record the update). Users can, of course, can get the SKIP_WORKTREE bit back such as by running `git sparse-checkout reapply` (if they have ensured the file is unmodified and doesn't match the specified sparsity patterns). === Pros/Cons of suggested solution === Pros: * Solves the user visible problems reported above, which I've been complaining about for nearly a year but couldn't find a solution to. * Helps prevent slow performance degradation with a sparse-index. * Much easier behavior in sparse-checkouts for users to reason about * Very simple, ~30 lines of code. * Significantly simplifies some ugly testcases, and obviates the need to test an entire class of potential issues. * Reduces code complexity, reasoning, and maintenance. Avoids disagreements about weird corner cases[12]. * It has been reported that some users might be (ab)using SKIP_WORKTREE as a let-me-modify-but-keep-the-file-in-the-worktree mechanism[13, and a few other similar references]. These users know of multiple caveats and shortcomings in doing so; perhaps not surprising given the "SKIP_WORKTREE expecations" section above. However, these users use `git update-index --skip-worktree`, and not `git sparse-checkout` or core.sparseCheckout=true. As such, these users would be unaffected by this change and can continue abusing the system as before. [12] https://lore.kernel.org/git/CABPp-BH9tju7WVm=QZDOvaMDdZbpNXrVWQdN-jmfN8wC6YVhmw@mail.gmail.com/ [13] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/13630849/git-difference-between-assume-unchanged-and-skip-worktree Cons: * When core.sparseCheckout is enabled, this adds a performance cost to reading the index. I'll defer discussion of this cost to a subsequent patch, since I have some optimizations to add. === Notes on testcase modifications === The good: * t1011: Compare to two cases above it ('read-tree will not throw away dirty changes, non-sparse'); since the file is present, it should match the non-sparse case now * t1092: sparse-index & sparse-checkout now match full-worktree behavior in more cases! Yaay for consistency! * t6428, t7012: look at how much simpler the tests become! Merge and stash can just fail early telling the user there's a file in the way, instead of not noticing until it's about to write a file and then have to implement sudden crash avoidance. Hurray for sanity! * t7817: sparse behavior better matches full tree behavior. Hurray for sanity! The confusing: * t3705: These changes were ONLY needed on Windows, but they don't hurt other platforms. Let's discuss each individually: * core.sparseCheckout should be false by default. Nothing in this testcase toggles that until many, many tests later. However, early tests (#5 in particular) were testing `update-index --skip-worktree` behavior in a non-sparse-checkout, but the Windows tests in CI were behaving as if core.sparseCheckout=true had been specified somewhere. I do not have access to a Windows machine. But I just manually did what should have been a no-op and turned the config off. And it fixed the test. * I have no idea why the leftover .gitattributes file from this test was causing failures for test #18 on Windows, but only with these changes of mine. Test #18 was checking for empty stderr, and specifically wanted to know that some error completely unrelated to file endings did not appear. The leftover .gitattributes file thus caused some spurious stderr unrelated to the thing being checked. Since other tests did not intend to test normalization, just proactively remove the .gitattributes file. I'm certain this is cleaner and better, I'm just unsure why/how this didn't trigger problems before. Signed-off-by: Elijah Newren <newren@gmail.com> Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
2022-01-14 15:59:41 +00:00
echo in the way >expect &&
test_cmp expect modified &&
git diff --quiet HEAD ":!modified" &&
# ...and that working directory reflects the files correctly
repo_read_index: clear SKIP_WORKTREE bit from files present in worktree The fix is short (~30 lines), but the description is not. Sorry. There is a set of problems caused by files in what I'll refer to as the "present-despite-SKIP_WORKTREE" state. This commit aims to not just fix these problems, but remove the entire class as a possibility -- for those using sparse checkouts. But first, we need to understand the problems this class presents. A quick outline: * Problems * User facing issues * Problem space complexity * Maintenance and code correctness challenges * SKIP_WORKTREE expectations in Git * Suggested solution * Pros/Cons of suggested solution * Notes on testcase modifications === User facing issues === There are various ways for users to get files to be present in the working copy despite having the SKIP_WORKTREE bit set for that file in the index. This may come from: * various git commands not really supporting the SKIP_WORKTREE bit[1,2] * users grabbing files from elsewhere and writing them to the worktree (perhaps even cached in their editor) * users attempting to "abort" a sparse-checkout operation with a not-so-early Ctrl+C (updating $GIT_DIR/info/sparse-checkout and the working tree is not atomic)[3]. Once users have present-despite-SKIP_WORKTREE files, any modifications users make to these files will be ignored, possibly to users' confusion. Further: * these files will degrade performance for the sparse-index case due to requiring the index to be expanded (see commit 55dfcf9591 ("sparse-checkout: clear tracked sparse dirs", 2021-09-08) for why we try to delete entire directories outside the sparse cone). * these files will not be updated by by standard commands (switch/checkout/pull/merge/rebase will leave them alone unless conflicts happen -- and even then, the conflicted file may be written somewhere else to avoid overwriting the SKIP_WORKTREE file that is present and in the way) * there is nothing in Git that users can use to discover such files (status, diff, grep, etc. all ignore it) * there is no reasonable mechanism to "recover" from such a condition (neither `git sparse-checkout reapply` nor `git reset --hard` will correct it). So, not only are users modifications ignored, but the files get progressively more stale over time. At some point in the future, they may change their sparseness specification or disable sparse-checkouts. At that time, all present-despite-SKIP_WORKTREE files will show up as having lots of modifications because they represent a version from a different branch or commit. These might include user-made local changes from days before, but the only way to tell is to have users look through them all closely. If these users come to others for help, there will be no logs that explain the issue; it's just a mysterious list of changes. Users might adamantly claim (correctly, as it turns out) that they didn't modify these files, while others presume they did. [1] https://lore.kernel.org/git/xmqqbmb1a7ga.fsf@gitster-ct.c.googlers.com/ [2] https://lore.kernel.org/git/CABPp-BH9tju7WVm=QZDOvaMDdZbpNXrVWQdN-jmfN8wC6YVhmw@mail.gmail.com/ [3] https://lore.kernel.org/git/CABPp-BFnFpzwGC11TLoLs8YK5yiisA5D5-fFjXnJsbESVDwZsA@mail.gmail.com/ === Problem space complexity === SKIP_WORKTREE has been part of Git for over a decade. Duy did lots of work on it initially, and several others have since come along and put lots of work into it. Stolee spent most of 2021 on the sparse-index, with lots of bugfixes along the way including to non-sparse-index cases as we are still trying to get sparse checkouts to behave reasonably. Basically every codepath throughout the treat needs to be aware of an additional type of file: tracked-but-not-present. The extra type results in lots of extra testcases and lots of extra code everywhere. But, the sad thing is that we actually have more than one extra type. We have tracked, tracked-but-not-present (SKIP_WORKTREE), and tracked-but-promised-to-not-be-present-but-is-present-anyway (present-despite-SKIP_WORKTREE). Two types is a monumental amount of effort to support, and adding a third feels a bit like insanity[4]. [4] Some examples of which can be seen at https://lore.kernel.org/git/CABPp-BGJ_Nvi5TmgriD9Bh6eNXE2EDq2f8e8QKXAeYG3BxZafA@mail.gmail.com/ === Maintenance and code correctness challenges === Matheus' patches to grep stalled for nearly a year, in part because of complications of how to handle sparse-checkouts appropriately in all cases[5][6] (with trying to sanely figure out how to sanely handle present-despite-SKIP_WORKTREE files being one of the complications). His rm/add follow-ups also took months because of those kinds of issues[7]. The corner cases with things like submodules and SKIP_WORKTREE with the addition of present-despite-SKIP_WORKTREE start becoming really complex[8]. We've had to add ugly logic to merge-ort to attempt to handle present-despite-SKIP_WORKTREE files[9], and basically just been forced to give up in merge-recursive knowing full well that we'll sometimes silently discard user modifications. Despite stash essentially being a merge, it needed extra code (beyond what was in merge-ort and merge-recursive) to manually tweak SKIP_WORKTREE bits in order to avoid a few different bugs that'd result in an early abort with a partial stash application[10]. [5] See https://lore.kernel.org/git/5f3f7ac77039d41d1692ceae4b0c5df3bb45b74a.1612901326.git.matheus.bernardino@usp.br/#t and the dates on the thread; also Matheus and I had several conversations off-list trying to resolve the issues over that time [6] ...it finally kind of got unstuck after https://lore.kernel.org/git/CABPp-BGJ_Nvi5TmgriD9Bh6eNXE2EDq2f8e8QKXAeYG3BxZafA@mail.gmail.com/ [7] See for example https://lore.kernel.org/git/CABPp-BHwNoVnooqDFPAsZxBT9aR5Dwk5D9sDRCvYSb8akxAJgA@mail.gmail.com/#t and quotes like "The core functionality of sparse-checkout has always been only partially implemented", a statement I still believe is true today. [8] https://lore.kernel.org/git/pull.809.git.git.1592356884310.gitgitgadget@gmail.com/ [9] See commit 66b209b86a ("merge-ort: implement CE_SKIP_WORKTREE handling with conflicted entries", 2021-03-20) [10] See commit ba359fd507 ("stash: fix stash application in sparse-checkouts", 2020-12-01) === SKIP_WORKTREE expectations in Git === A couple quotes: * From [11] (before the "sparse-checkout" command existed): If it needs too many special cases, hacks, and conditionals, then it is not worth the complexity---if it is easier to write a correct code by allowing Git to populate working tree files, it is perfectly fine to do so. In a sense, the sparse checkout "feature" itself is a hack by itself, and that is why I think this part should be "best effort" as well. * From the git-sparse-checkout manual (still present today): THIS COMMAND IS EXPERIMENTAL. ITS BEHAVIOR, AND THE BEHAVIOR OF OTHER COMMANDS IN THE PRESENCE OF SPARSE-CHECKOUTS, WILL LIKELY CHANGE IN THE FUTURE. [11] https://lore.kernel.org/git/xmqqbmb1a7ga.fsf@gitster-ct.c.googlers.com/ === Suggested solution === SKIP_WORKTREE was written to allow sparse-checkouts, in particular, as the name of the option implies, to allow the file to NOT be in the worktree but consider it to be unchanged rather than deleted. The suggests a simple solution: present-despite-SKIP_WORKTREE files should not exist, for those using sparse-checkouts. Enforce this at index loading time by checking if core.sparseCheckout is true; if so, check files in the index with the SKIP_WORKTREE bit set to verify that they are absent from the working tree. If they are present, unset the bit (in memory, though any commands that write to the index will record the update). Users can, of course, can get the SKIP_WORKTREE bit back such as by running `git sparse-checkout reapply` (if they have ensured the file is unmodified and doesn't match the specified sparsity patterns). === Pros/Cons of suggested solution === Pros: * Solves the user visible problems reported above, which I've been complaining about for nearly a year but couldn't find a solution to. * Helps prevent slow performance degradation with a sparse-index. * Much easier behavior in sparse-checkouts for users to reason about * Very simple, ~30 lines of code. * Significantly simplifies some ugly testcases, and obviates the need to test an entire class of potential issues. * Reduces code complexity, reasoning, and maintenance. Avoids disagreements about weird corner cases[12]. * It has been reported that some users might be (ab)using SKIP_WORKTREE as a let-me-modify-but-keep-the-file-in-the-worktree mechanism[13, and a few other similar references]. These users know of multiple caveats and shortcomings in doing so; perhaps not surprising given the "SKIP_WORKTREE expecations" section above. However, these users use `git update-index --skip-worktree`, and not `git sparse-checkout` or core.sparseCheckout=true. As such, these users would be unaffected by this change and can continue abusing the system as before. [12] https://lore.kernel.org/git/CABPp-BH9tju7WVm=QZDOvaMDdZbpNXrVWQdN-jmfN8wC6YVhmw@mail.gmail.com/ [13] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/13630849/git-difference-between-assume-unchanged-and-skip-worktree Cons: * When core.sparseCheckout is enabled, this adds a performance cost to reading the index. I'll defer discussion of this cost to a subsequent patch, since I have some optimizations to add. === Notes on testcase modifications === The good: * t1011: Compare to two cases above it ('read-tree will not throw away dirty changes, non-sparse'); since the file is present, it should match the non-sparse case now * t1092: sparse-index & sparse-checkout now match full-worktree behavior in more cases! Yaay for consistency! * t6428, t7012: look at how much simpler the tests become! Merge and stash can just fail early telling the user there's a file in the way, instead of not noticing until it's about to write a file and then have to implement sudden crash avoidance. Hurray for sanity! * t7817: sparse behavior better matches full tree behavior. Hurray for sanity! The confusing: * t3705: These changes were ONLY needed on Windows, but they don't hurt other platforms. Let's discuss each individually: * core.sparseCheckout should be false by default. Nothing in this testcase toggles that until many, many tests later. However, early tests (#5 in particular) were testing `update-index --skip-worktree` behavior in a non-sparse-checkout, but the Windows tests in CI were behaving as if core.sparseCheckout=true had been specified somewhere. I do not have access to a Windows machine. But I just manually did what should have been a no-op and turned the config off. And it fixed the test. * I have no idea why the leftover .gitattributes file from this test was causing failures for test #18 on Windows, but only with these changes of mine. Test #18 was checking for empty stderr, and specifically wanted to know that some error completely unrelated to file endings did not appear. The leftover .gitattributes file thus caused some spurious stderr unrelated to the thing being checked. Since other tests did not intend to test normalization, just proactively remove the .gitattributes file. I'm certain this is cleaner and better, I'm just unsure why/how this didn't trigger problems before. Signed-off-by: Elijah Newren <newren@gmail.com> Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
2022-01-14 15:59:41 +00:00
test_path_is_missing addme &&
test_path_is_file modified &&
test_path_is_missing removeme &&
test_path_is_file subdir/A &&
repo_read_index: clear SKIP_WORKTREE bit from files present in worktree The fix is short (~30 lines), but the description is not. Sorry. There is a set of problems caused by files in what I'll refer to as the "present-despite-SKIP_WORKTREE" state. This commit aims to not just fix these problems, but remove the entire class as a possibility -- for those using sparse checkouts. But first, we need to understand the problems this class presents. A quick outline: * Problems * User facing issues * Problem space complexity * Maintenance and code correctness challenges * SKIP_WORKTREE expectations in Git * Suggested solution * Pros/Cons of suggested solution * Notes on testcase modifications === User facing issues === There are various ways for users to get files to be present in the working copy despite having the SKIP_WORKTREE bit set for that file in the index. This may come from: * various git commands not really supporting the SKIP_WORKTREE bit[1,2] * users grabbing files from elsewhere and writing them to the worktree (perhaps even cached in their editor) * users attempting to "abort" a sparse-checkout operation with a not-so-early Ctrl+C (updating $GIT_DIR/info/sparse-checkout and the working tree is not atomic)[3]. Once users have present-despite-SKIP_WORKTREE files, any modifications users make to these files will be ignored, possibly to users' confusion. Further: * these files will degrade performance for the sparse-index case due to requiring the index to be expanded (see commit 55dfcf9591 ("sparse-checkout: clear tracked sparse dirs", 2021-09-08) for why we try to delete entire directories outside the sparse cone). * these files will not be updated by by standard commands (switch/checkout/pull/merge/rebase will leave them alone unless conflicts happen -- and even then, the conflicted file may be written somewhere else to avoid overwriting the SKIP_WORKTREE file that is present and in the way) * there is nothing in Git that users can use to discover such files (status, diff, grep, etc. all ignore it) * there is no reasonable mechanism to "recover" from such a condition (neither `git sparse-checkout reapply` nor `git reset --hard` will correct it). So, not only are users modifications ignored, but the files get progressively more stale over time. At some point in the future, they may change their sparseness specification or disable sparse-checkouts. At that time, all present-despite-SKIP_WORKTREE files will show up as having lots of modifications because they represent a version from a different branch or commit. These might include user-made local changes from days before, but the only way to tell is to have users look through them all closely. If these users come to others for help, there will be no logs that explain the issue; it's just a mysterious list of changes. Users might adamantly claim (correctly, as it turns out) that they didn't modify these files, while others presume they did. [1] https://lore.kernel.org/git/xmqqbmb1a7ga.fsf@gitster-ct.c.googlers.com/ [2] https://lore.kernel.org/git/CABPp-BH9tju7WVm=QZDOvaMDdZbpNXrVWQdN-jmfN8wC6YVhmw@mail.gmail.com/ [3] https://lore.kernel.org/git/CABPp-BFnFpzwGC11TLoLs8YK5yiisA5D5-fFjXnJsbESVDwZsA@mail.gmail.com/ === Problem space complexity === SKIP_WORKTREE has been part of Git for over a decade. Duy did lots of work on it initially, and several others have since come along and put lots of work into it. Stolee spent most of 2021 on the sparse-index, with lots of bugfixes along the way including to non-sparse-index cases as we are still trying to get sparse checkouts to behave reasonably. Basically every codepath throughout the treat needs to be aware of an additional type of file: tracked-but-not-present. The extra type results in lots of extra testcases and lots of extra code everywhere. But, the sad thing is that we actually have more than one extra type. We have tracked, tracked-but-not-present (SKIP_WORKTREE), and tracked-but-promised-to-not-be-present-but-is-present-anyway (present-despite-SKIP_WORKTREE). Two types is a monumental amount of effort to support, and adding a third feels a bit like insanity[4]. [4] Some examples of which can be seen at https://lore.kernel.org/git/CABPp-BGJ_Nvi5TmgriD9Bh6eNXE2EDq2f8e8QKXAeYG3BxZafA@mail.gmail.com/ === Maintenance and code correctness challenges === Matheus' patches to grep stalled for nearly a year, in part because of complications of how to handle sparse-checkouts appropriately in all cases[5][6] (with trying to sanely figure out how to sanely handle present-despite-SKIP_WORKTREE files being one of the complications). His rm/add follow-ups also took months because of those kinds of issues[7]. The corner cases with things like submodules and SKIP_WORKTREE with the addition of present-despite-SKIP_WORKTREE start becoming really complex[8]. We've had to add ugly logic to merge-ort to attempt to handle present-despite-SKIP_WORKTREE files[9], and basically just been forced to give up in merge-recursive knowing full well that we'll sometimes silently discard user modifications. Despite stash essentially being a merge, it needed extra code (beyond what was in merge-ort and merge-recursive) to manually tweak SKIP_WORKTREE bits in order to avoid a few different bugs that'd result in an early abort with a partial stash application[10]. [5] See https://lore.kernel.org/git/5f3f7ac77039d41d1692ceae4b0c5df3bb45b74a.1612901326.git.matheus.bernardino@usp.br/#t and the dates on the thread; also Matheus and I had several conversations off-list trying to resolve the issues over that time [6] ...it finally kind of got unstuck after https://lore.kernel.org/git/CABPp-BGJ_Nvi5TmgriD9Bh6eNXE2EDq2f8e8QKXAeYG3BxZafA@mail.gmail.com/ [7] See for example https://lore.kernel.org/git/CABPp-BHwNoVnooqDFPAsZxBT9aR5Dwk5D9sDRCvYSb8akxAJgA@mail.gmail.com/#t and quotes like "The core functionality of sparse-checkout has always been only partially implemented", a statement I still believe is true today. [8] https://lore.kernel.org/git/pull.809.git.git.1592356884310.gitgitgadget@gmail.com/ [9] See commit 66b209b86a ("merge-ort: implement CE_SKIP_WORKTREE handling with conflicted entries", 2021-03-20) [10] See commit ba359fd507 ("stash: fix stash application in sparse-checkouts", 2020-12-01) === SKIP_WORKTREE expectations in Git === A couple quotes: * From [11] (before the "sparse-checkout" command existed): If it needs too many special cases, hacks, and conditionals, then it is not worth the complexity---if it is easier to write a correct code by allowing Git to populate working tree files, it is perfectly fine to do so. In a sense, the sparse checkout "feature" itself is a hack by itself, and that is why I think this part should be "best effort" as well. * From the git-sparse-checkout manual (still present today): THIS COMMAND IS EXPERIMENTAL. ITS BEHAVIOR, AND THE BEHAVIOR OF OTHER COMMANDS IN THE PRESENCE OF SPARSE-CHECKOUTS, WILL LIKELY CHANGE IN THE FUTURE. [11] https://lore.kernel.org/git/xmqqbmb1a7ga.fsf@gitster-ct.c.googlers.com/ === Suggested solution === SKIP_WORKTREE was written to allow sparse-checkouts, in particular, as the name of the option implies, to allow the file to NOT be in the worktree but consider it to be unchanged rather than deleted. The suggests a simple solution: present-despite-SKIP_WORKTREE files should not exist, for those using sparse-checkouts. Enforce this at index loading time by checking if core.sparseCheckout is true; if so, check files in the index with the SKIP_WORKTREE bit set to verify that they are absent from the working tree. If they are present, unset the bit (in memory, though any commands that write to the index will record the update). Users can, of course, can get the SKIP_WORKTREE bit back such as by running `git sparse-checkout reapply` (if they have ensured the file is unmodified and doesn't match the specified sparsity patterns). === Pros/Cons of suggested solution === Pros: * Solves the user visible problems reported above, which I've been complaining about for nearly a year but couldn't find a solution to. * Helps prevent slow performance degradation with a sparse-index. * Much easier behavior in sparse-checkouts for users to reason about * Very simple, ~30 lines of code. * Significantly simplifies some ugly testcases, and obviates the need to test an entire class of potential issues. * Reduces code complexity, reasoning, and maintenance. Avoids disagreements about weird corner cases[12]. * It has been reported that some users might be (ab)using SKIP_WORKTREE as a let-me-modify-but-keep-the-file-in-the-worktree mechanism[13, and a few other similar references]. These users know of multiple caveats and shortcomings in doing so; perhaps not surprising given the "SKIP_WORKTREE expecations" section above. However, these users use `git update-index --skip-worktree`, and not `git sparse-checkout` or core.sparseCheckout=true. As such, these users would be unaffected by this change and can continue abusing the system as before. [12] https://lore.kernel.org/git/CABPp-BH9tju7WVm=QZDOvaMDdZbpNXrVWQdN-jmfN8wC6YVhmw@mail.gmail.com/ [13] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/13630849/git-difference-between-assume-unchanged-and-skip-worktree Cons: * When core.sparseCheckout is enabled, this adds a performance cost to reading the index. I'll defer discussion of this cost to a subsequent patch, since I have some optimizations to add. === Notes on testcase modifications === The good: * t1011: Compare to two cases above it ('read-tree will not throw away dirty changes, non-sparse'); since the file is present, it should match the non-sparse case now * t1092: sparse-index & sparse-checkout now match full-worktree behavior in more cases! Yaay for consistency! * t6428, t7012: look at how much simpler the tests become! Merge and stash can just fail early telling the user there's a file in the way, instead of not noticing until it's about to write a file and then have to implement sudden crash avoidance. Hurray for sanity! * t7817: sparse behavior better matches full tree behavior. Hurray for sanity! The confusing: * t3705: These changes were ONLY needed on Windows, but they don't hurt other platforms. Let's discuss each individually: * core.sparseCheckout should be false by default. Nothing in this testcase toggles that until many, many tests later. However, early tests (#5 in particular) were testing `update-index --skip-worktree` behavior in a non-sparse-checkout, but the Windows tests in CI were behaving as if core.sparseCheckout=true had been specified somewhere. I do not have access to a Windows machine. But I just manually did what should have been a no-op and turned the config off. And it fixed the test. * I have no idea why the leftover .gitattributes file from this test was causing failures for test #18 on Windows, but only with these changes of mine. Test #18 was checking for empty stderr, and specifically wanted to know that some error completely unrelated to file endings did not appear. The leftover .gitattributes file thus caused some spurious stderr unrelated to the thing being checked. Since other tests did not intend to test normalization, just proactively remove the .gitattributes file. I'm certain this is cleaner and better, I'm just unsure why/how this didn't trigger problems before. Signed-off-by: Elijah Newren <newren@gmail.com> Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
2022-01-14 15:59:41 +00:00
test_path_is_missing untouched
)
'
#TODO test_expect_failure 'git-apply adds file' false
#TODO test_expect_failure 'git-apply updates file' false
#TODO test_expect_failure 'git-apply removes file' false
#TODO test_expect_failure 'git-mv to skip-worktree' false
#TODO test_expect_failure 'git-mv from skip-worktree' false
#TODO test_expect_failure 'git-checkout' false
test_done