Inside git’s internal plumbing folder, git holds a file with the branch name and all of the references (files and changes) for that branch.
When you make a new branch git will update its internal plumbing checking to see if the new branch already exists, updates its references to the new branch if it doesn’t (all held internally in a case sensitive way). It will then make that new branch file, git has already checked that the case senitive name for the branch doesn’t exist internally, so it should be good to go.
Part of its process is creating that internal branch file… But wait!
Windows doesn’t have case sensitive naming so when it tries to make that new branch file it will overwrite the old one (since it shouldn’t exist by git’s own reference!) All of the files and references for it now get nuked.
Now you’re at best back to wherever that originally named branch came from, at worse your .git folder is properly borked.
I’m probably going to get downvoted to Hell and back, but someone’s gotta say it: that’s a git problem, not Windows.
First of all, I agree that case-insensitive file systems suck. It makes things inconsistent, especially from a development standpoint.
But, everyone has known that Windows (and macOS) use case insensitive file systems. At least for Windows, it always has been that way.
Git was written in Linux, which uses a case sensitive file system. So it’s no surprise that its internals use case insensitive storage. Someone ported it over to Windows, and I’m sure they knew about the file system differences. They could’ve taken that into account for file systems that are case insensitive, but chose not to do anything to safe guard Windows users.
But until the day that somebody fixes Git, everybody who is not using case sensitive file systems needs to care more about how they name things (and make sure their team does too). Because fuck everyone else, right?
The issue isn’t just a simple oversight. Git includes the file name as part of the tree and commit hash. The hash has security implications. There’s really no way to make the hash support case insensitivity without opening up a multitude of holes there. So there will always be a mismatch, and you can’t just fix it without changing how git works from the ground up.
I was talking about branch names, not file names. File duplicates due to case sensitivity aren’t a problem on Windows anyway because those are already enforced by the file system. Unless you have people working on Linux that have multiple files with a similar name but with different casing but those should know better.
I agree that the meme is silly to point to this problem specifically. However, if we leave aside application support as a reason to prefer an OS, then there is really not a lot of arguments left for choosing Windows…
Also, if you use an NTFS USB drive to move the .git folder, you will be in trouble.
Thankfully, moving those things to pen drives is very slow, making most users tar it first, anyway, hence sidestepping the problem.
You want all applications to explisitly support each individual filesystem? That sounds insane. It is absolutly fair to demand some common ground like posix compliance. And a windows user can like anyone else just mount their git repo area using any other filesystem.
Inside git’s internal plumbing folder, git holds a file with the branch name and all of the references (files and changes) for that branch.
When you make a new branch git will update its internal plumbing checking to see if the new branch already exists, updates its references to the new branch if it doesn’t (all held internally in a case sensitive way). It will then make that new branch file, git has already checked that the case senitive name for the branch doesn’t exist internally, so it should be good to go.
Part of its process is creating that internal branch file… But wait!
Windows doesn’t have case sensitive naming so when it tries to make that new branch file it will overwrite the old one (since it shouldn’t exist by git’s own reference!) All of the files and references for it now get nuked.
Now you’re at best back to wherever that originally named branch came from, at worse your .git folder is properly borked.
I’m probably going to get downvoted to Hell and back, but someone’s gotta say it: that’s a git problem, not Windows.
First of all, I agree that case-insensitive file systems suck. It makes things inconsistent, especially from a development standpoint.
But, everyone has known that Windows (and macOS) use case insensitive file systems. At least for Windows, it always has been that way.
Git was written in Linux, which uses a case sensitive file system. So it’s no surprise that its internals use case insensitive storage. Someone ported it over to Windows, and I’m sure they knew about the file system differences. They could’ve taken that into account for file systems that are case insensitive, but chose not to do anything to safe guard Windows users.
But until the day that somebody fixes Git, everybody who is not using case sensitive file systems needs to care more about how they name things (and make sure their team does too). Because fuck everyone else, right?
@jeansburger@lemmy.world
Beware neckbeards with pitchforks.
The issue isn’t just a simple oversight. Git includes the file name as part of the tree and commit hash. The hash has security implications. There’s really no way to make the hash support case insensitivity without opening up a multitude of holes there. So there will always be a mismatch, and you can’t just fix it without changing how git works from the ground up.
Of course you can, make it lowercase internally and store the case formatted string for output.
That’d break git repos where files with the same name, but different case exist.
I was talking about branch names, not file names. File duplicates due to case sensitivity aren’t a problem on Windows anyway because those are already enforced by the file system. Unless you have people working on Linux that have multiple files with a similar name but with different casing but those should know better.
so now its the Linux users who should know better, just in case git introduces a breaking change out of nowhere ?
…but not the ones using a case-insensitive file system with case-sensitive version control ?
I agree that the meme is silly to point to this problem specifically. However, if we leave aside application support as a reason to prefer an OS, then there is really not a lot of arguments left for choosing Windows…
Also, if you use an NTFS USB drive to move the .git folder, you will be in trouble.
Thankfully, moving those things to pen drives is very slow, making most users tar it first, anyway, hence sidestepping the problem.
Well … everyone using case insensitive FSs need to worry how they name stuff anyway.
Absolutly. And they can just mount the git store using another filesystem. Would be the by far easiest solution.
Or use OS’s where case sensitive FS’s are the default. The ones I have in mind are much better for programming anyway…
You want all applications to explisitly support each individual filesystem? That sounds insane. It is absolutly fair to demand some common ground like posix compliance. And a windows user can like anyone else just mount their git repo area using any other filesystem.