[[!comment format=mdwn
 username="erics"
 ip="76.10.136.8"
 subject="comment 3"
 date="2014-05-04T00:48:55Z"
 content="""
I think things would be simpler if a \"drop --relaxed\" file were to look to
the outside world just like one that was dropped without \"--relaxed\".
In particular, even if a file is dropped with \"--relaxed\":

  - the file's work-tree symlink should be broken synchronously by the
   \"drop --relaxed\" command (as opposed to only being broken later,
   if and when the file physically goes away)

  - other repos should no longer see the file as available from this repo

Basically, the idea is to add a third state, but **not** a user-visible one.
Rather, it should be a well hidden implementation detail, which doesn't
affect the conceptual model (very much like git's own distinction between
loose and packed objects).  Thus, *logically dropped* would be a
better name than *potentially dropped*.

Corollaries:

  - A logically (but not physically) dropped file should *not* count towards
    satisfying the numcopies limit, i.e. if some other repo has been asked
    to drop the file too

  - That in turn means that \"git annex drop --relaxed\" needs to satisfy a
    numcopies check at the time the user runs it; it's not enough to only do
    the check later, at physical-deletion time.  (At that point, there should probably be
    a second numcopies check.  I don't know whether the model requires it,
    but even if not, paranoia is good :-) )

  - If the user wants to use the file again, they have to \"git annex get\" it
    again, just like usual -- but if the file hasn't been physically deleted yet,
    the \"get\" will be nearly instantaneous, since the data won't have to be copied

One possible implementation would be to have \"drop --relaxed\" behave almost identically
to a non-relaxed drop -- do all the same safety checks, bookkeeping, etc.  The only
difference would be to have it rename the file at the end, rather
than deleting it outright.  (Logically dropped files could stay in their same
directory, but with a distinguishing filename, or they could be moved to a
parallel tree, e.g. *.git/annex/dropped*.  I don't have an opinion on that choice;
I've just picked one arbitrarily to keep talking about.)

\"get\" would simply search .git/annex/dropped before going off to remote
repos, and if the file is found there, would move (not copy) it back into
.git/annex/objects.

An alternative might be to set some kind of *logically dropped* flag, but
that would probably be a much more intrusive change; a lot of places in the
code would have to check the flag.  Doing it as a file rename would make for a much more
localized change; most of git-annex would completely ignore .git/annex/dropped, and just go
about its business as it has always done.

(It might be tempting to think of (or even implement) .git/annex/dropped as a
very low-cost remote, but that's not accurate; the semantics are different.)

I'm just starting to experiment with git-annex, so I can only hope that what 
I'm saying isn't completely silly...

"""]]