[[!comment format=mdwn
 username="http://adamspiers.myopenid.com/"
 nickname="Adam"
 subject="extra level of indirection"
 date="2011-12-19T12:45:18Z"
 content="""
Surely this could be handled with an extra layer of indirection?

git-annex would ensure that every directory containing annexed data contains a new symlink `.git-annex` which points to `$git_root/.git/annex`.  Then every symlink to an annexed object uses a relative symlink via this: `.git_annex/objects/xx/yy/ZZZZZZZZZZ`.  Even though this symlink is relative, moving it to a different directory would not break anything: if the move destination directory already contained other annexed data, it would also already contain `.git-annex` so git-annex wouldn't need to do anything.  And if it didn't, git-annex would simply create a new `.git-annex` symlink there.

These `.git-annex` symlinks could either be added to `.gitignore`, or manually/automatically checked in to the current branch - I'm not sure which would be best.  There's also the option of using multiple levels of indirection:

    foo/bar/baz/.git-annex -> ../.git-annex
    foo/bar/.git-annex -> ../.git-annex
    foo/.git-annex -> ../.git-annex
    .git-annex -> .git/annex

I'm not sure whether this would bring any advantages.  It might bring a performance hit due to the kernel having to traverse more symlinks, but without benchmarking it's difficult to say how much.  I'd expect it only to be an issue with a large number of deep directory trees.
"""]]