Pull fails in symlinked submodule on Windows

[euclio]

Steps to reproduce:

1. Open Administrator command prompt.

   mkdir repo
   cd repo
   git init
   mkdir dir
   cd dir
   git submodule add <some arbitrary git repo> submodule
   cd ..
   mklink /D link dir\submodule
   cd link
   git pull origin master

2. Expected behavior: The submodule is updated to origin/master.

3. Actual behavior: Command fails, outputs

   fatal: Not a git repository: ../../.git/modules/dir/submodule

[t-b]

What is your git version and windows version? Have you enabled/disabled core.symlinks?

Symlinks are in general problematic with our git.

[frogonwheels]

I thought I had symlinks largely working for git 2, but I've had some flaws in my implementation pointed out to me, so I need to do a bit of reworking. Meanwhile symlinks and msysgit don't work at all. Msys has no support for it. (It's in msys2)

[euclio]

git version 1.9.4.msysgit.0
OS Name:                   Microsoft Windows 8.1 Pro
OS Version:                6.3.9600 N/A Build 9600

I have not enabled or disabled core.symlinks.

[frogonwheels]

When I say "I thought I had", this means that I had some things that were fundamentally bad, and so the patches have been excluded. I'm trying to find time to follow up on the recommendations and get it fixed. At least I have the tests working though; that should make it a whole bunch easier this time. What you are trying to do won't work without the symlink changes. As with all things msysgit, the more people who actually dig in and do work, the easier it gets.

[paquettej]

I am seeing a similar issue with symlinks in 1.9.0.msysgit.0. I have a directory within my source tree that is a symlink (mklink /d) to a folder outside the tree. I was able to do an initial commit without issue. Now that I have modified files within that folder, git status shows them as deleted.

[dscho]

@snowmoonsoftware let's follow best practices and test against the latest release, yes?

[paquettej]

@dscho Confirmed the issue exists using git version 1.9.4.msysgit.2

[kmashint]

+1 on any progress to have symlinks working with git-Windows, although this is a dependency on MSYS as well.

@dscho I'll see if I can get time to write code rather than comments ;-)

[dscho]

+1 on any progress to have symlinks working with git-Windows, although this is a dependency on MSYS as well.

@kmashint unfortunately, votes do not matter much in this project; contributions matter a lot, though.

[frogonwheels]

@kmashint - Look at my work and the final criticisms of it. The changes to all the tests are relevant, mostly until msys supports symlinks. There's a lot there that is still correct, and it's just a matter of redoing some of it (like the Stat - which works on the whole path instead of just the last item).

[dscho]

Symlink support was finally merged into Git for Windows 2.x; Please note that you will have to activate the support specifically using core.symlinks:

git clone -c core.symlinks=true <URL>