Subject: Re: Update symlinks after changing core.symlinks

From: "brian m. carlson" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2025 22:41:50 +0000

On 2025-04-02 at 07:18:45, Andrej Zhilenkov wrote:
> Hello! Is there a direct way to update symlinks in repo after changing
> core.symlinks?
> E.g. update plain files, if it was false, with symlinks or vice versa.
> 
> I've tried `checkout` and `reset` but they have no effect in this case
> (see the snippet below). The only two things that are working:
> - checking out a commit before the symlink was introduced and then
> checking out any commit after (need to know that special commit to
> make it work for those specific symlinks, not practical)
> - removing symlinked files and checking them out specifically (need to
> either have a list or somehow search for those files to reset)
> 
> Is this the way to do it or is there an alternative?

We don't have a way to do this because `core.symlinks` is intended as a
hint from Git to itself about whether the file system and operating
system support symlinks that's determined when the repository is
created.  It's not intended that users modify it, much like
`core.filemode` or `core.ignorecase`.

What is your particular use case that requires changing this value?
-- 
brian m. carlson (they/them)
Toronto, Ontario, CA