Re: [RFC PATCH 00/12] Sparse checkout

[Jan Hudec <bulb@ucw.cz>]

Hello,

sorry for replying to an old thread, but I am a bit puzzled here,

On Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 17:55:14 +0100, Johannes Schindelin wrote:
> On Wed, 23 Jul 2008, Nguyen Thai Ngoc Duy wrote:
> > On 7/23/08, Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de> wrote:
> > >  On Wed, 23 Jul 2008, Nguyễn Thái Ngọc Duy wrote:
> > >
> > >  > So in short, sparse prefix will be stored in config, 
> > >  > core.sparsecheckout.
> > >
> > > Do you really think the prefix should be stored anywhere else than the 
> > > index?
> > >
> > > With core.sparseCheckout you have to introduce a _sh*tload_ of config 
> > > loaders.
> > >
> > > And with core.sparseCheckout you are at the whim of the user, since 
> > > .git/config is _supposed_ to be user-editable.
> > >
> > > From a logical point of view, I'd say that the sparse prefix has 
> > > nothing to do with the "configuration" of the local repository.
> > 
> > Well, whatever place. I chose .git/config because I did not want to 
> > introduce a new config place. But then how about .git/sparsecheckout?
> 
> No, I did mean the index.  This is an attribute of the index: either it is 
> sparsely checked out or not.  You can even have multiple indices 
> (switching between them by setting GIT_INDEX_FILE) which have different 
> prefixes.

Um, but does the prefix we want to use depend on what files are physically
present in the tree? That would however imply that it's /not/ an attribute of
the index, but the tree and therefore should be stored in a separate object.

The question whether it goes in the .git/config or .git/sparsecheckout is
than that of semantics -- if it's in .git/config, than user changes that by
editing the file or git config and no other way, while if it's in
.git/sparsecheckout, user changes it by running checkout with appropriate
arguments.

By the way, why is it *prefix*? Wouldn't a *path limit* be better?

-- 
						 Jan 'Bulb' Hudec <bulb@ucw.cz>