Breaks git after running

[Mark2xv]

After running synx, the .git folder seems to get destroyed. It is still there, but git does not recognize it as such.
I do not get any error messages during the run.

This is a rough distribution of our product, as seen in XCode:

touchapp/   (This is the project file)
    a.bundle
    b.bundle

    Localizable.strings/
        LanguageA.strings (Base)
        LanguageB.strings
        LanguageC.strings

    Images/
        (Just a bunch of images)

    touch/
        Images.xcassets (Launch images, application icons and whatnot)
        SomeGroupWithSomeCode/
            code.h
            code.m
            SubgroupWithSomeMoreCode/
                subcode.h
                subcode.m
        SomeGroupWithSomeMoreCode/
             morecode.h
             morecode.m

    Libraries/
        (A number of git submodules, but also some none libraries and some other external code files)
        (Some have their own .xcodeproj, some have subprojects of their own as well)
    Frameworks/
    Products/

This is roughly how it is reflected in filesystem:

touchapp/
    .git/
    .gitignore
    .gitmodules
    touch.xcodeproj/
    touch/
        LibraryA/
            LibraryA.xcodeproj/
            somecodefromlibrary.h
            somecodefromlibrary.m
        LibraryB/
            (Basically the same as Library A)
        LibraryC/
            libraryheaders.h
            somecode.c
        LanguageA.lproj/
            Localizable.strings
        LanguageB.lproj/
            Localizable.strings
        LanguageC.lproj/
            Localizable.strings
    Images/
    Inline Icons/
    CodeFromExternalParty/
        somecode.h
        somecode.m
    Animation/
    image1.png
    image2.png (and so on for about 50 times)

[marklarr]

After running synx, the .git folder seems to get destroyed. It is still there, but git does not recognize it as such.

What does this mean exactly? What makes it seem like it was destroyed? What is not working?

[Mark2xv]

The folder is still there, but git does not recognize it as a repository.

Steps taken:

synx /Users/mark/touch/touch.xcodeproj

Wait for it to finish..
Finishes without any errors.

Afterwards, check git status:

fatal: Not a git repository (or any of the parent directories): .git

I'll check tomorrow what's actually changing in the .git directory to try and figure out what's changing.

[marklarr]

That's weird... does it look like anything is missing from .git?

[Mark2xv]

Yes, some things are definitely missing.

A diff -r touch/.git backupSynxedGit shows this:

Only in touch/.git: FETCH_HEAD
Only in touch/.git: HEAD
Only in touch/.git: config
Only in touch/.git: index
Only in touch/.git/logs: HEAD

and a whole lot more such as the contents of .git/modules.

I also spotted this in the output of synx:

Syncing files that are not included in Xcode project..
  Localizable.strings/
    .git
      COMMIT_EDITMSG
      config
      FETCH_HEAD
      HEAD
      index
      logs
        HEAD
        refs
          heads
            develop
            feature
              -featurenameredacted-
              -featurenameredacted-
            hotfix
              2.5.5
            master
          remotes
            origin
              feature
                -featurenameredacted-
                -featurenameredacted-
              HEAD
              hotfix
                2.5.5
      modules
        touch

And basically the entire contents of .git.
Why is it putting it as if it's 'under' Localizable.strings? It is most surely not located there.

[Mark2xv]

Why not just completely ignore any directory called .git and any file called .gitmodules or .gitignore? I can't think of any circumstance where you would want to change the location of those.

[marklarr]

Synx creates another directory in a temporary location on your computer, builds the synced up version of your project there, and then moves it over to replace the original. So, because it works this way, synx can't just ignore things like .git -- it needs to bring them over to the synced up version.

I've never heard of this issue before, so I'm assuming that there is something unique with the way your project is setup. Mostly people's .git directory lives alongside their project directory. IE,

└── YourClonedRepo
    ├── .git
    ├── YourProject

It seems like yours is more like

└── YourProject
    ├── .git

which is why Synx needs to tamper with the .git directory.

As far as why it's not moving your .git directory correctly, I'm not sure. It doesn't seem like it should be treating it any differently than any other directory. It's hard to diagnose without having the project.

[Mark2xv]

For a number of reasons I can't show you the project, and absolutely under no circumstance share the files themselves.
What would you need to try and figure out what's going on?

[kylef]

@Mark2xv Would you be able to create a similar project which can be used to reproduce the issues? Steps to reproduce, or an example project you can run with Synx to reproduce would help figuring out the problem.

[marklarr]

what @kylef said

[Mark2xv]

Alright, I'll see if I can recreate the same scenario.

[marklarr]

@Mark2xv any luck?

[Mark2xv]

Haven't really had the chance to investigate/reproduce this issue as of yet. I'll try to do so this weekend.

[Mark2xv]

Having a really hard time figuring out what is the cause of this is...
None of my reproduction cases seem to have any effect.

On a sidenote:
I noticed that in another issue (#65) that the -e option does not do what I thought it does. Not that it has/had any effect though, including exclusion options or not, it still seems to delete roughly 2/3rds of my folders contents. (Goes from 550MB to 200MB).

Is there no way of making sure it absolutely ignores any folder that is a submodule? So that it completely copies it over, exactly as it was, to the newly synced folder?

[nunogoncalves]

I have the same issue. I'm still trying to figure this one out and came here to see if anybody as the same problem.

[Mark2xv]

I haven't had much time lately to try and figure out what's causing all of this.
Unfortunately, I can not give any more information regarding our project structure either...

I really hope this issue will get solved as this would save a lot of time!