diff --git a/doc/todo/symlinks_to_symlinks_to_the_annex/comment_2_f5c08ecd3b0b4099186d78c85b7f1e6f._comment b/doc/todo/symlinks_to_symlinks_to_the_annex/comment_2_f5c08ecd3b0b4099186d78c85b7f1e6f._comment new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..fe80bd7821 --- /dev/null +++ b/doc/todo/symlinks_to_symlinks_to_the_annex/comment_2_f5c08ecd3b0b4099186d78c85b7f1e6f._comment @@ -0,0 +1,24 @@ +[[!comment format=mdwn + username="joey" + subject="""comment 2""" + date="2018-09-11T17:04:29Z" + content=""" +Supporting this would require that git-annex stat every +file that non-git-annex symlinks point to, which seems +like it could have a performance impact. + +Also, git-annex is often processing information from git in a pipe, +which can include the link target. In such cases it can very efficiently +see if the link target is an annex object, but to support symlinks to +symlinks it would have to do an additonal round trip through git, which +would be much more innefficient than statting a symlink. + +And then there's the question of symlinks which point outside the git +repository, or to another git-annex repository, or symlink loops. +Now we have potentially security sensitive filename parsing. + +It seems like a really big can of worms to open, I am not eager to do this. +You'd have to have some *extemely* compelling use cases. So far, my +response to the use cases provided is: +"Doctor, Doctor… It Hurts When I Do This!" +"""]]