refs.c: allow listing and deleting badly named refs

We currently do not handle badly named refs well:

  $ cp .git/refs/heads/master .git/refs/heads/master.....@\*@\\.
  $ git branch
    fatal: Reference has invalid format: 'refs/heads/master.....@*@\.'
  $ git branch -D master.....@\*@\\.
    error: branch 'master.....@*@\.' not found.

Users cannot recover from a badly named ref without manually finding
and deleting the loose ref file or appropriate line in packed-refs.
Making that easier will make it easier to tweak the ref naming rules
in the future, for example to forbid shell metacharacters like '`'
and '"', without putting people in a state that is hard to get out of.

So allow "branch --list" to show these refs and allow "branch -d/-D"
and "update-ref -d" to delete them.  Other commands (for example to
rename refs) will continue to not handle these refs but can be changed
in later patches.

Details:

In resolving functions, refuse to resolve refs that don't pass the
git-check-ref-format(1) check unless the new RESOLVE_REF_ALLOW_BAD_NAME
flag is passed.  Even with RESOLVE_REF_ALLOW_BAD_NAME, refuse to
resolve refs that escape the refs/ directory and do not match the
pattern [A-Z_]* (think "HEAD" and "MERGE_HEAD").

In locking functions, refuse to act on badly named refs unless they
are being deleted and either are in the refs/ directory or match [A-Z_]*.

Just like other invalid refs, flag resolved, badly named refs with the
REF_ISBROKEN flag, treat them as resolving to null_sha1, and skip them
in all iteration functions except for for_each_rawref.

Flag badly named refs (but not symrefs pointing to badly named refs)
with a REF_BAD_NAME flag to make it easier for future callers to
notice and handle them specially.  For example, in a later patch
for-each-ref will use this flag to detect refs whose names can confuse
callers parsing for-each-ref output.

In the transaction API, refuse to create or update badly named refs,
but allow deleting them (unless they try to escape refs/ and don't match
[A-Z_]*).

Signed-off-by: Ronnie Sahlberg <sahlberg@google.com>
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>

1 files changed, 10 insertions, 2 deletions

diff --git a/refs.h b/refs.h
index c61b8f442f..2bc3556874 100644
--- a/refs.h
+++ b/refs.h
@@ -56,12 +56,20 @@ struct ref_transaction;
 
 /*
  * Reference cannot be resolved to an object name: dangling symbolic
- * reference (directly or indirectly), corrupt reference file, or
- * symbolic reference refers to ill-formatted reference name.
+ * reference (directly or indirectly), corrupt reference file,
+ * reference exists but name is bad, or symbolic reference refers to
+ * ill-formatted reference name.
  */
 #define REF_ISBROKEN 0x04
 
 /*
+ * Reference name is not well formed.
+ *
+ * See git-check-ref-format(1) for the definition of well formed ref names.
+ */
+#define REF_BAD_NAME 0x08
+
+/*
  * The signature for the callback function for the for_each_*()
  * functions below.  The memory pointed to by the refname and sha1
  * arguments is only guaranteed to be valid for the duration of a