Subject: Re: [PATCH] do not overwrite untracked symlinks

From: Clemens Buchacher <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2011 20:46:23 +0100

Hi Junio,

On Sun, Feb 20, 2011 at 11:15:26PM -0800, Junio C Hamano wrote:
> 
> The title of the test says that checkout must keep a/b-2/c/d; if "git
> checkout" without "-f" doesn't do so and you had to change it to "git
> checkout -f", it would mean one of two things: (1) you broke "checkout",
> or (2) the behaviour the test wanted to keep working turned out to be
> unwanted (iow, "git checkout" without "-f" should fail under the initial
> condition this test sets up).

I didn't write the test, but to me it looks like the test wants to
make sure that while the symlink is removed, the tree it's pointing
to is not removed. I am not sure why that was ever a concern. But
by adding -f the test stays the same, except for the fact that it
is now forcefully overwriting a symlink, which could be done
silently before.

But I am fine with removing the test if you think it's meaningless.
And Hannes posted a number of tests for "symlink preservation"
earlier in this thread:

 http://mid.gmane.org/[email-masked]

We should rename the test to 2020, since 2019 is by now already
taken.  But otherwise I think the tests are fine as-is. I also used
them to test my patch.

Clemens