git/builtin/update-ref.c, branch main

update-ref: utilize rejected error details if available

2026-01-26T06:27:33Z

When git-update-ref(1) received the '--update-ref' flag, the error details generated in the refs namespace wasn't propagated with failed updates. Instead only an error code pertaining to the type of rejection was noted. This missed detailed error message which the user can act upon. The previous commits added the required code to propagate these detailed error messages from the refs namespace. Now that additional details are available, let's output this additional details to stderr. This allows users to have additional information over the already present machine parsable output. While we're here, improve the existing tests for the machine parsable output by checking for the entire output string and not just the rejection reason. Reported-by: Elijah Newren Co-authored-by: Jeff King Signed-off-by: Karthik Nayak Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano

refs: add rejection detail to the callback function

2026-01-26T06:27:33Z

The previous commit started storing the rejection details alongside the error code for rejected updates. Pass this along to the callback function `ref_transaction_for_each_rejected_update()`. Currently the field is unused, but will be integrated in the upcoming commits. Co-authored-by: Jeff King Signed-off-by: Jeff King Signed-off-by: Karthik Nayak Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano

config: move Git config parsing into "environment.c"

2025-07-23T15:15:22Z

In "config.c" we host both the business logic to read and write config files as well as the logic to parse specific Git-related variables. On the one hand this is mixing concerns, but even more importantly it means that we cannot easily remove the dependency on `the_repository` in our config parsing logic. Move the logic into "environment.c". This file is a grab bag of all kinds of global state already, so it is quite a good fit. Furthermore, it also hosts most of the global variables that we're parsing the config values into, making this an even better fit. Note that there is one hidden change: in `parse_fsync_components()` we use an `int` to iterate through `ARRAY_SIZE(fsync_component_names)`. But as -Wsign-compare warnings are enabled in this file this causes a compiler warning. The issue is fixed by using a `size_t` instead. This change allows us to drop the `USE_THE_REPOSITORY_VARIABLE` declaration. Signed-off-by: Patrick Steinhardt Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano

config: drop `git_config()` wrapper

2025-07-23T15:15:18Z

In 036876a1067 (config: hide functions using `the_repository` by default, 2024-08-13) we have moved around a bunch of functions in the config subsystem that depend on `the_repository`. Those function have been converted into mere wrappers around their equivalent function that takes in a repository as parameter, and the intent was that we'll eventually remove those wrappers to make the dependency on the global repository variable explicit at the callsite. Follow through with that intent and remove `git_config()`. All callsites are adjusted so that they use `repo_config(the_repository, ...)` instead. While some callsites might already have a repository available, this mechanical conversion is the exact same as the current situation and thus cannot cause any regression. Those sites should eventually be cleaned up in a later patch series. Signed-off-by: Patrick Steinhardt Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano

refs: add function to translate errors to strings

2025-05-19T18:06:31Z

The commit 76e760b999 (refs: introduce enum-based transaction error types, 2025-04-08) introduced enum-based transaction error types. The refs transaction logic was also modified to propagate these errors. For clients of the ref transaction system, it would be beneficial to provide human readable messages for these errors. There is already an existing mapping in 'builtin/update-ref.c', move it to 'refs.c' as `ref_transaction_error_msg()` and use the same within the 'builtin/update-ref.c'. Helped-by: Junio C Hamano Signed-off-by: Karthik Nayak Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano

Merge branch 'kn/non-transactional-batch-updates'

2025-04-16T20:54:19Z

Updating multiple references have only been possible in all-or-none fashion with transactions, but it can be more efficient to batch multiple updates even when some of them are allowed to fail in a best-effort manner. A new "best effort batches of updates" mode has been introduced. * kn/non-transactional-batch-updates: update-ref: add --batch-updates flag for stdin mode refs: support rejection in batch updates during F/D checks refs: implement batch reference update support refs: introduce enum-based transaction error types refs/reftable: extract code from the transaction preparation refs/files: remove duplicate duplicates check refs: move duplicate refname update check to generic layer refs/files: remove redundant check in split_symref_update()

Merge branch 'ps/object-wo-the-repository'

2025-04-15T20:50:15Z

The object layer has been updated to take an explicit repository instance as a parameter in more code paths. * ps/object-wo-the-repository: hash: stop depending on `the_repository` in `null_oid()` hash: fix "-Wsign-compare" warnings object-file: split out logic regarding hash algorithms delta-islands: stop depending on `the_repository` object-file-convert: stop depending on `the_repository` pack-bitmap-write: stop depending on `the_repository` pack-revindex: stop depending on `the_repository` pack-check: stop depending on `the_repository` environment: move access to "core.bigFileThreshold" into repo settings pack-write: stop depending on `the_repository` and `the_hash_algo` object: stop depending on `the_repository` csum-file: stop depending on `the_repository`

update-ref: add --batch-updates flag for stdin mode

2025-04-08T14:59:49Z

When updating multiple references through stdin, Git's update-ref command normally aborts the entire transaction if any single update fails. This atomic behavior prevents partial updates. Introduce a new batch update system, where the updates the performed together similar but individual updates are allowed to fail. Add a new `--batch-updates` flag that allows the transaction to continue even when individual reference updates fail. This flag can only be used in `--stdin` mode and builds upon the batch update support added to the refs subsystem in the previous commits. When enabled, failed updates are reported in the following format: rejected SP ( | ) SP ( | ) SP LF Update the documentation to reflect this change and also tests to cover different scenarios where an update could be rejected. Signed-off-by: Karthik Nayak Acked-by: Patrick Steinhardt Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano

builtin/update-ref: skip ambiguity checks when parsing object IDs

2025-03-12T18:31:17Z

Most of the commands in git-update-ref(1) accept an old and/or new object ID to update a specific reference to. These object IDs get parsed via `repo_get_oid()`, which not only handles plain object IDs, but also those that have a suffix like "~" or "^2". More surprisingly though, it even knows to resolve arbitrary revisions, despite the fact that its manpage does not mention this fact even once. One consequence of this is that we also check for ambiguous references: when parsing a full object ID where the DWIM mechanism would also cause us to resolve it as a branch, we'd end up printing a warning. While this check makes sense to have in general, it is arguably less useful in the context of git-update-ref(1). This is due to multiple reasons: - The manpage is explicitly structured around object IDs. So if we see a fully blown object ID, the intent should be quite clear in general. - The command is part of our plumbing layer and not a tool that users would generally use in interactive workflows. As such, the warning will likely not be visible to anybody in the first place. - Users can and should use the fully-qualified refname in case there is any potential for ambiguity. And given that this command is part of our plumbing layer, one should always try to be as defensive as possible and use fully-qualified refnames. Furthermore, this check can be quite expensive when updating lots of references via `--stdin`, because we try to read multiple references per object ID that we parse according to the DWIM rules. This effect can be seen both with the "files" and "reftable" backend. The issue is not unique to git-update-ref(1), but was also an issue in git-cat-file(1), where it was addressed by disabling the ambiguity check in 25fba78d36b (cat-file: disable object/refname ambiguity check for batch mode, 2013-07-12). Disable the warning in git-update-ref(1), which provides a significant speedup with both backends. The user-visible outcome is unchanged even when ambiguity exists, except that we don't show the warning anymore. The following benchmark creates 10000 new references with a 100000 preexisting refs with the "files" backend: Benchmark 1: update-ref: create many refs (refformat = files, preexisting = 100000, new = 10000, revision = HEAD~) Time (mean ± σ): 467.3 ms ± 5.1 ms [User: 100.0 ms, System: 365.1 ms] Range (min … max): 461.9 ms … 479.3 ms 10 runs Benchmark 2: update-ref: create many refs (refformat = files, preexisting = 100000, new = 10000, revision = HEAD) Time (mean ± σ): 394.1 ms ± 5.8 ms [User: 63.3 ms, System: 327.6 ms] Range (min … max): 384.9 ms … 405.7 ms 10 runs Summary update-ref: create many refs (refformat = files, preexisting = 100000, new = 10000, revision = HEAD) ran 1.19 ± 0.02 times faster than update-ref: create many refs (refformat = files, preexisting = 100000, new = 10000, revision = HEAD~) And with the "reftable" backend: Benchmark 1: update-ref: create many refs (refformat = reftable, preexisting = 100000, new = 10000, revision = HEAD~) Time (mean ± σ): 146.9 ms ± 2.2 ms [User: 90.4 ms, System: 56.0 ms] Range (min … max): 142.7 ms … 150.8 ms 19 runs Benchmark 2: update-ref: create many refs (refformat = reftable, preexisting = 100000, new = 10000, revision = HEAD) Time (mean ± σ): 63.2 ms ± 1.1 ms [User: 41.0 ms, System: 21.8 ms] Range (min … max): 61.1 ms … 66.6 ms 41 runs Summary update-ref: create many refs (refformat = reftable, preexisting = 100000, new = 10000, revision = HEAD) ran 2.32 ± 0.05 times faster than update-ref: create many refs (refformat = reftable, preexisting = 100000, new = 10000, revision = HEAD~) Note that the absolute improvement with both backends is roughly in the same ballpark, but the relative improvement for the "reftable" backend is more significant because writing the new table to disk is faster in the first place. Signed-off-by: Patrick Steinhardt Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano

hash: stop depending on `the_repository` in `null_oid()`

2025-03-10T20:16:20Z

The `null_oid()` function returns the object ID that only consists of zeroes. Naturally, this ID also depends on the hash algorithm used, as the number of zeroes is different between SHA1 and SHA256. Consequently, the function returns the hash-algorithm-specific null object ID. This is currently done by depending on `the_hash_algo`, which implicitly makes us depend on `the_repository`. Refactor the function to instead pass in the hash algorithm for which we want to retrieve the null object ID. Adapt callsites accordingly by passing in `the_repository`, thus bubbling up the dependency on that global variable by one layer. There are a couple of trivial exceptions for subsystems that already got rid of `the_repository`. These subsystems instead use the repository that is available via the calling context: - "builtin/grep.c" - "grep.c" - "refs/debug.c" There are also two non-trivial exceptions: - "diff-no-index.c": Here we know that we may not have a repository initialized at all, so we cannot rely on `the_repository`. Instead, we adapt `diff_no_index()` to get a `struct git_hash_algo` as parameter. The only caller is located in "builtin/diff.c", where we know to call `repo_set_hash_algo()` in case we're running outside of a Git repository. Consequently, it is fine to continue passing `the_repository->hash_algo` even in this case. - "builtin/ls-files.c": There is an in-flight patch series that drops `USE_THE_REPOSITORY_VARIABLE` in this file, which causes a semantic conflict because we use `null_oid()` in `show_submodule()`. The value is passed to `repo_submodule_init()`, which may use the object ID to resolve a tree-ish in the superproject from which we want to read the submodule config. As such, the object ID should refer to an object in the superproject, and consequently we need to use its hash algorithm. This means that we could in theory just not bother about this edge case at all and just use `the_repository` in "diff-no-index.c". But doing so would feel misdesigned. Remove the `USE_THE_REPOSITORY_VARIABLE` preprocessor define in "hash.c". Signed-off-by: Patrick Steinhardt Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano