Git GUI: Unicode paths misinterpreted since 1.9.0

[peci1]

When I upgraded from 1.8.5.2 to 1.9.0, Git GUI stopped working with repositories containing non-ASCII characters in their path.

E.g. a repo stored in D:\Programování\git-tutorial could be loaded in 1.8, but in 1.9 I instead just see an error saying:

No working directory D:/Programování/git-tutorial
couldn't change working directory
to "D:/Programování/git-tutorial": no such file or
directory 

Git GUI itself starts without problems, but when I try to open the repo, this error appears. Downgrading to 1.8 fixes the issue.

[bernardpaulus]

Hello,

Could you please add details on how to reproduce your problem? I created a repository with git 1.8.5.2 on windows 7 with git bash by doing:

mkdir "c:\tmp\éléphant"
cd "c:\tmp\éléphant"
git init .

Then I upgraded to 1.9.2 and i was still able to cd to that directory in git bash and open it in git Gui.

You might also want to check if your problem is not fixed in 1.9.2 :)

[peci1]

No, it just doesn't work. I created D:\éléphant, created a new Git repo in it, and the error was the same:

Again, 1.8.5 opens the repository normally.

Here is my %HOME%.gitconfig in the system encoding (I think CP1250):

And here it is in UTF-8:

[dscho]

@peci1 to be precise, @bernardpaulus asked you to test with Git Bash. Obviously, we have to narrow down what the problem is.

Besides, please paste text when you want to show text, not screenshots.

[peci1]

I am able to cd to the directory in Git Bash, but calling git gui from inside of that directory gives the same error.

I posted images because I wanted to make sure the character encoding won't get screwed once more...

[bernardpaulus]

Hello @peci1 ,

Here is the procedure I tried to reproduce the problem:

1. install git 1.8.5.2 . Note: I check the "use TrueType font" in the installer, and I only use the simple menu

2. creation of a new directory étoile containing a non-ascii character

3. initialized a repo in it

4. (continued)

5. created an empty readme file

6. reload modifications in git gui to show the new file

7. commit it

8. install git 1.9.0

9. try to reopen the repo

10. it works on my platform

Could you tell:

1. your platform details (unless i'm wrong you did not tell which windows version you use. Please check this link for more info )
2. if it works with 1.9.2
3. the procedure you take to reproduce this problem, with at least as much details as above (well, don't bother if it works in 1.9.2 )
4. (extra) the equivalent procedure in git bash. This would help in locating the problem

Cheers :)

[dscho]

@bernardpaulus thank you for this excellent report. I added a link to https://github.com/msysgit/msysgit/wiki#issue-reporting-guidelines so other reporters can follow your outstanding example.

[peci1]

Well, that is odd.

I started to follow your steps to show you how the bug appears. After installing 1.9.2 and reproducing the error, I got the idea to look at my %PATH% (only a relevant part shown):
C:\Windows\system32;C:\Windows;C:\Windows\System32\Wbem;C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\;C:\Program Files (x86)\GNUWin32\bin;C:\bin;C:\Program Files (x86)\OpenSSH\bin;C:\Program Files (x86)\Git\cmd

Then I started to wonder if GNUWin32 couldn't interfere with Git (it is something like Cygwin). So I deleted C:\Program Files (x86)\GNUWin32\bin; from the PATH and tried again. Et voilà, Git GUI started in the étolie directory successfully. Okay, but I want to use GNUWin32, so I returned it back to PATH to think out a solutiuon.

And now the strange part comes: after returning my PATH to the exact state as before, Git GUI is still able to open the Unicode paths (and Git Bash too). Even after restarting the computer.

This leaves me completely puzzled, but with Git 1.9.2 working =) It seems like it only needed to break through something and record a value somewhere... But I thought that Git adds its bin folder to the start of the PATH as soon as git.exe is run, so I don't see a way how that change could influence anything...

[patthoyts]

It is possible this requires an update to the version of Tcl/Tk we are shipping. If I create a directory "C:\src\гит" on my English windows7 system then I can run git commands on it and change into that folder and launch git-gui from the command line (cmd.exe) without problems. However, starting git-gui from a non-git folder and using the directory chooser to select this directory fails. Hitting "Control-F2" to show the Tcl console and trying "set dir [tk_chooseDirectory]" to manually check what is going on reports:

(8.5.13) % set dir [tk_chooseDirectory -initialdir "c:/src"]
C:/src/???

Trying the same with another version of Tcl 8.5 yields the same but with 8.6.1 I get:

(8.6.1) % set dir [tk_chooseDirectory -initialdir c:/src/]
C:/src/гит

We can test this provided we have a version of Tcl 8.6 installed on our PATH by renaming the Git\bin\wish.exe so that the only wish.exe on the PATH is an 8.6 version. Doing this results in git-gui's file selection working as expected so an upgrade is definitely indicated.

I think there is also a problem with passing such unicode path through git-cheetah to git-gui as well as using the "Git Gui" context menu item on the folder is failing to launch git-gui for this directory.

[t-b]

@patthoyts In mingwGitDevEnv we already have tcl/tk 8.6.0.

[dscho]

Happily, in Git for Windows 2.x we already have Tcl/Tk 8.6. And since 2.x supersedes 1.x, I close the ticket here: With versions 2.x, Git for Windows moved to a new org.