refs: propagate errno when reading special refs fails

Some refs in Git are more special than others due to reasons explained
in the next commit. These refs are read via `refs_read_special_head()`,
but this function doesn't behave the same as when we try to read a
normal ref. Most importantly, we do not propagate `failure_errno` in the
case where the reference does not exist, which is behaviour that we rely
on in many parts of Git.

Fix this bug by propagating errno when `strbuf_read_file()` fails.

Signed-off-by: Patrick Steinhardt <[email protected]>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <[email protected]>

Author: pks-t

refs.c

@@ -1806,8 +1806,10 @@ static int refs_read_special_head(struct ref_store *ref_store,
 	int result = -1;
 	strbuf_addf(&full_path, "%s/%s", ref_store->gitdir, refname);
 
-	if (strbuf_read_file(&content, full_path.buf, 0) < 0)
+	if (strbuf_read_file(&content, full_path.buf, 0) < 0) {
+		*failure_errno = errno;
 		goto done;
+	}
 
 	result = parse_loose_ref_contents(content.buf, oid, referent, type,
 					  failure_errno);

t/t1403-show-ref.sh

@@ -266,4 +266,14 @@ test_expect_success '--exists with directory fails with generic error' '
 	test_cmp expect err
 '
 
+test_expect_success '--exists with non-existent special ref' '
+	test_expect_code 2 git show-ref --exists FETCH_HEAD
+'
+
+test_expect_success '--exists with existing special ref' '
+	test_when_finished "rm .git/FETCH_HEAD" &&
+	git rev-parse HEAD >.git/FETCH_HEAD &&
+	git show-ref --exists FETCH_HEAD
+'
+
 test_done