Similar to [[bugs/add_overwrite_race]], several callers of replaceWorkTreeFile are susceptable to a race. They do some check of the current content of the file, and then they call that to replace it with something else. But in between, the file could be overwritten with other content. And that content then gets overwritten. This is probably not a bug, because `git checkout` actually has the same problem, IIRC. And if git does that, it's ok for git-annex to also. Still, this affects several git-annex commands, and it would be better to avoid it. To avoid it, replaceWorkTreeFile could be provided with a Maybe FileStatus of the content that was in the worktree that is ok to overwrite. Then atomically swap the current worktree file and the new file, and afterwards check if the old worktree file is unmodifified, moving it back if it is modified. (Note that, this will not help with situations where the worktree file is opened for append, but gets replaced by git-annex before being written to. A later write will be to a deleted file.) The atomic swap would need a call to `renameat2()` with `RENAME_EXCHANGE`. There does not seem to be a binding for that in any haskell library. Also, it is linux-specific, though may also have reached freebsd? Hmm, but even this could lead to file corruption. Suppose that a process is opening the worktree file for append, writing a byte, closing it, and repeating. The bytes are `[1,2,3,...]`. The worktree file has 1 appended to it. Then renameat2 swaps the files. The new file gets 2 appended to it. The worktree file was modified, so is moved back into place. It gets 3 appended to it. So the worktree file ends up containing `1,3`. So, perhaps there is really no good solution to this. --[[Joey]]