[[!comment format=mdwn
 username="joey"
 subject="""comment 3"""
 date="2020-08-06T22:29:49Z"
 content="""
AFAICS, git does something like cache the stat of the directory at the top
of the working tree, and uses that to know which part to check for symlinks. 
There's a lstat cache in the relevant code anyway.

Ok, implemented it that way in git-annex, which I was able to do w/o doing
any more work per file than comparing a dev and an inode.
"""]]
