Encoding issue with tags in packed-refs file

Tags found in the packed-refs file that can be created by the Git command git pack-refs do not have to be UTF8 encoded. In these cases, GitPython fails to read these tags due to assuming they should be UTF8 compatible.

The source for this issue is found here:
https://github.com/gitpython-developers/GitPython/blob/main/git/refs/symbolic.py#L124

with open(cls._get_packed_refs_path(repo), "rt", encoding="UTF-8") as fp:

A working example (using a repository with a non-utf8 tag):

git clone https://github.com/ACRA/acra
cd acra

Create a Python script with the following content:

import git
repo = git.Repo(".")
print(repo.tags)

Execute the script:

python script.py

Result:
UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0xc3 in position 6216: invalid continuation byte

Thanks for reporting!

GitPython absolutely has a problem with encodings, in that it should use bytes in most places where it now uses strings, and the same is true for filesystem paths.

When reviewing #2190 (comment) I realize that this can't be fixed properly without changing the types that are created by the ref traversal, after all, these can't have an encoding attached to them anymore.

So no need to attempt this in V3.

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Encoding issue with tags in packed-refs file #2064

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Encoding issue with tags in packed-refs file #2064

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Byron commented on Aug 6, 2025

Byron commented on Jul 26, 2026

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