1 Document: the-racy-git-problem
2 Title: Use of index and the "racy git" problem
4 Abstract: In order to speed up comparison between files in
5 the work tree and index entries, git compares current
6 lstat(2) information with saved lstat(2) information from
7 whenever it updated the corresponding index entry. A very
8 quick update that does not change file size could therefore
9 make git incorrectly think files in the working tree are
10 unmodified even though they actually are modified. This is
11 called the "racy git" problem (discovered by Pasky), and
12 the entries that would appear clean when they ought not to
13 be because of this problem are called "racily clean".
15 This document explains how git avoids that problem.
16 Section: File Management
19 Files: /usr/share/doc/git-doc/technical/racy-git.txt