refs: store references hierarchically

Store references hierarchically in a tree that matches the
pseudo-directory structure of the reference names.  Add a new kind of
ref_entry (with flag REF_DIR) to represent a whole subdirectory of
references.  Sort ref_dirs one subdirectory at a time.

NOTE: the dirs can now be sorted as a side-effect of other function
calls.  Therefore, it would be problematic to do something from a
each_ref_fn callback that could provoke the sorting of a directory
that is currently being iterated over (i.e., the directory containing
the entry that is being processed or any of its parents).

This is a bit far-fetched, because a directory is always sorted just
before being iterated over.  Therefore, read-only accesses cannot
trigger the sorting of a directory whose iteration has already
started.  But if a callback function would add a reference to a parent
directory of the reference in the iteration, then try to resolve a
reference under that directory, a re-sort could be triggered and cause
the iteration to work incorrectly.

Nevertheless...add a comment in refs.h warning against modifications
during iteration.

Signed-off-by: Michael Haggerty <mhagger@alum.mit.edu>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>

1 files changed, 5 insertions, 2 deletions

diff --git a/refs.h b/refs.h
index 33202b0d4c..d6c2fe2dfb 100644
--- a/refs.h
+++ b/refs.h
@@ -15,8 +15,11 @@ struct ref_lock {
 #define REF_ISBROKEN 0x04
 
 /*
- * Calls the specified function for each ref file until it returns nonzero,
- * and returns the value
+ * Calls the specified function for each ref file until it returns
+ * nonzero, and returns the value.  Please note that it is not safe to
+ * modify references while an iteration is in progress, unless the
+ * same callback function invocation that modifies the reference also
+ * returns a nonzero value to immediately stop the iteration.
  */
 typedef int each_ref_fn(const char *refname, const unsigned char *sha1, int flags, void *cb_data);
 extern int head_ref(each_ref_fn, void *);