metadata: When setting metadata, do not recurse into directories by default, since that can be surprising behavior and difficult to recover from. The old behavior is available by using --force.

CmdLine/Seek.hs

@@ -32,6 +32,27 @@ withFilesInGit :: (FilePath -> CommandStart) -> CommandSeek
 withFilesInGit a params = seekActions $ prepFiltered a $
 	seekHelper LsFiles.inRepo params
 
+withFilesInGitNonRecursive :: (FilePath -> CommandStart) -> CommandSeek
+withFilesInGitNonRecursive a params = ifM (Annex.getState Annex.force)
+	( withFilesInGit a params
+	, if null params
+		then needforce
+		else seekActions $ prepFiltered a (getfiles [] params)
+	)
+  where
+	getfiles c [] = return (reverse c)
+	getfiles c (p:ps) = do
+		(fs, cleanup) <- inRepo $ LsFiles.inRepo [p]
+		case fs of
+			[f] -> do
+				void $ liftIO $ cleanup
+				getfiles (f:c) ps
+			[] -> do
+				void $ liftIO $ cleanup
+				getfiles c ps
+			_ -> needforce
+	needforce = error "Not recursively setting metadata. Use --force to do that."
+
 withFilesNotInGit :: Bool -> (FilePath -> CommandStart) -> CommandSeek
 withFilesNotInGit skipdotfiles a params
 	| skipdotfiles = do

Command/MetaData.hs

@@ -58,9 +58,12 @@ seek ps = do
 	getfield <- getOptionField getOption $ \ms ->
 		return $ either error id . mkMetaField <$> ms
 	now <- liftIO getPOSIXTime
+	let seeker = if null modmeta
+		then withFilesInGit
+		else withFilesInGitNonRecursive
 	withKeyOptions
 		(startKeys now getfield modmeta)
-		(withFilesInGit (whenAnnexed $ start now getfield modmeta))
+		(seeker $ whenAnnexed $ start now getfield modmeta)
 		ps
 
 start :: POSIXTime -> Maybe MetaField -> [ModMeta] -> FilePath -> Key -> CommandStart

debian/changelog

@@ -22,6 +22,9 @@ git-annex (5.20150206) UNRELEASED; urgency=medium
     built with process-1.2
   * bittorrent: Fix mojibake introduced in parsing arai2c progress output.
   * fsck --from: If a download from a remote fails, propigate the failure.
+  * metadata: When setting metadata, do not recurse into directories by
+    default, since that can be surprising behavior and difficult to recover
+    from. The old behavior is available by using --force.
 
  -- Joey Hess <id@joeyh.name>  Fri, 06 Feb 2015 13:57:08 -0400
 

doc/bugs/__34__git_annex_metadata__34___without_a_file_name_is_hazardous.mdwn

@@ -22,3 +22,5 @@ congrats, your old values of field are (kinda) gone.
 
 # End of transcript or log.
 """]]
+
+> agreed; [[fixed|done]] --[[Joey]]