diff options
| author | Patrick Steinhardt <ps@pks.im> | 2025-10-15 08:26:08 +0200 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> | 2025-10-15 09:11:08 -0700 |
| commit | f570bd91b3b2c6c5ef2035e3ce3ed76e613e74a7 (patch) | |
| tree | 0b8d2d0b7282b00064be165f1f92a8bb04e32d14 /Documentation | |
| parent | ac7d021f0659f5a81be7b69a54a19c9618ce9dba (diff) | |
| download | git-f570bd91b3b2c6c5ef2035e3ce3ed76e613e74a7.tar.gz | |
refs/files: deprecate writing symrefs as symbolic links
The "files" backend has the ability to store symbolic refs as symbolic
links, which can be configured via "core.preferSymlinkRefs". This
feature stems back from the early days: the initial implementation of
symbolic refs used symlinks exclusively. The symref format was only
introduced in 9b143c6e15 (Teach update-ref about a symbolic ref stored
in a textfile., 2005-09-25) and made the default in 9f0bb90d16
(core.prefersymlinkrefs: use symlinks for .git/HEAD, 2006-05-02).
This is all about 20 years ago, and there are no known reasons nowadays
why one would want to use symlinks instead of symrefs. Mark the feature
for deprecation in Git 3.0.
Note that this only deprecates _writing_ symrefs as symbolic links.
Reading such symrefs is still supported for now.
Signed-off-by: Patrick Steinhardt <ps@pks.im>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation')
| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/BreakingChanges.adoc | 20 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/config/core.adoc | 3 |
2 files changed, 23 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/BreakingChanges.adoc b/Documentation/BreakingChanges.adoc index 90b53abcea..f814450d2f 100644 --- a/Documentation/BreakingChanges.adoc +++ b/Documentation/BreakingChanges.adoc @@ -295,6 +295,26 @@ The command will be removed. + cf. <xmqqa59i45wc.fsf@gitster.g> +* Support for `core.preferSymlinkRefs=true` has been deprecated and will be + removed in Git 3.0. Writing symbolic refs as symbolic links will be phased + out in favor of using plain files using the textual representation of + symbolic refs. ++ +Symbolic references were initially always stored as a symbolic link. This was +changed in 9b143c6e15 (Teach update-ref about a symbolic ref stored in a +textfile., 2005-09-25), where a new textual symref format was introduced to +store those symbolic refs in a plain file. In 9f0bb90d16 +(core.prefersymlinkrefs: use symlinks for .git/HEAD, 2006-05-02), the Git +project switched the default to use the textual symrefs in favor of symbolic +links. ++ +The migration away from symbolic links has happened almost 20 years ago by now, +and there is no known reason why one should prefer them nowadays. Furthermore, +symbolic links are not supported on some platforms. ++ +Note that only the writing side for such symbolic links is deprecated. Reading +such symbolic links is still supported for now. + == Superseded features that will not be deprecated Some features have gained newer replacements that aim to improve the design in diff --git a/Documentation/config/core.adoc b/Documentation/config/core.adoc index 08739bb9d4..406d7029d9 100644 --- a/Documentation/config/core.adoc +++ b/Documentation/config/core.adoc @@ -290,6 +290,9 @@ core.preferSymlinkRefs:: and other symbolic reference files, use symbolic links. This is sometimes needed to work with old scripts that expect HEAD to be a symbolic link. ++ +This configuration is deprecated and will be removed in Git 3.0. Symbolic refs +will always be written as textual symrefs. core.alternateRefsCommand:: When advertising tips of available history from an alternate, use the shell to |