Bug#959506: git-annex: `git annex add` sometimes treats non-dotfiles in dotdirs as dotfiles

[Marco Ricci]

Thus wrote Sean Whitton:
> On Sun 03 May 2020 at 08:57am +02, Marco Ricci wrote:
>> After upgrading the repository format to v8, `git annex add` sometimes
>> treats ordinary files stored in a dotdir the same as it treats dotfiles –
>> adding them to native git and saying they are non-large files, even when
>> `annex.largefiles` is not configured. I am aware that dotfiles are forced to
>> git by default unless I set `annex.dotfiles`, but I do not expect this to
>> happen with non-dotfiles, even if they are located within dotdirs.
>
> So what you are suggesting is that git-annex should treat all files
> within dotdirs as if they were themselves dotfiles?

No. The opposite. A dotfile is, by definition, a file whose basename
begins with a dot. And that doesn't apply to files in dotdirs, in
general. Thus git-annex should be treating them like normal files. IMO.

And as shown further down in the report, git-annex is inconsistent when
treating non-dotfiles in dotdirs: it depends entirely on whether
git-annex is given a relative path that just happens to begin with
a dot, even if that dot belongs to the directory and not to the file
basename.

(Actually, I don't want special-casing of dotfiles at all, I want them
treated like any other file in my repository. And I am, admittedly,
rather surprised that this is not the default behavior.)

Failing that, if upstream decides that files within dotdirs are dotfiles
as well, then I argue that this needs special mention in the
documentation for git-annex-add(1) and `annex.dotfiles`. Because that
interpretation is vastly different from what I understand a "dotfile" to
be.

Cheers,
Marco


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