integrity of linux copy of a git repo

If I make a recursive linux copy, "cp -rfp", of a git repo working tree is the resulting copy interchangeable with the original?

e.g.
/orig-wk-tree was created via git-clone with the file:/// url and therefore is a "full copy"
cp -rfp /orig-wk-tree /orig-wk-tree-copy
(do some stuff that breaks /orig-wk-tree)
rm -rf /orig-wk-tree
mv /orig-wk-tree-copy /orig-wk-tree

Have I truly recovered the full integrity of the original, or have I unwittingly introduced some sort of corruption?

v/r,
Neal

Hi Neal,

Yes, the git metadata does not hardcode the path to the repo anywhere. See gitrepository-layout(7) for perhaps more detail than you wanted.

You might want to use "git add --refresh ." (or even just "git diff") to update the cached stat() information before starting work with the new worktree, but that only matters if you are going to use very low-level commands.

Sure, that's a good way to do experiments.

Hope that helps,
Jonathan