path.c: document the purpose of is_ntfs_dotgit()

Previously, this function was completely undocumented. It is worth,
though, to explain what is going on, as it is not really obvious at all.

Suggested-by: Garima Singh <garima.singh@microsoft.com>
Signed-off-by: Johannes Schindelin <johannes.schindelin@gmx.de>
This commit is contained in:
Johannes Schindelin 2019-09-16 20:44:31 +02:00
parent e1d911dd4c
commit 525e7fba78

28
path.c
View File

@ -1302,6 +1302,34 @@ static int only_spaces_and_periods(const char *path, size_t len, size_t skip)
return 1;
}
/*
* On NTFS, we need to be careful to disallow certain synonyms of the `.git/`
* directory:
*
* - For historical reasons, file names that end in spaces or periods are
* automatically trimmed. Therefore, `.git . . ./` is a valid way to refer
* to `.git/`.
*
* - For other historical reasons, file names that do not conform to the 8.3
* format (up to eight characters for the basename, three for the file
* extension, certain characters not allowed such as `+`, etc) are associated
* with a so-called "short name", at least on the `C:` drive by default.
* Which means that `git~1/` is a valid way to refer to `.git/`.
*
* Note: Technically, `.git/` could receive the short name `git~2` if the
* short name `git~1` were already used. In Git, however, we guarantee that
* `.git` is the first item in a directory, therefore it will be associated
* with the short name `git~1` (unless short names are disabled).
*
* When this function returns 1, it indicates that the specified file/directory
* name refers to a `.git` file or directory, or to any of these synonyms, and
* Git should therefore not track it.
*
* This function is intended to be used by `git fsck` even on platforms where
* the backslash is a regular filename character, therefore it needs to handle
* backlash characters in the provided `name` specially: they are interpreted
* as directory separators.
*/
int is_ntfs_dotgit(const char *name)
{
size_t len;