Re: [PATCH] fast-export: Avoid dropping files from commits

[Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>]

Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de> writes:

> Hi,
>
> On Wed, 25 Mar 2009, newren@gmail.com wrote:
>
>> From: Elijah Newren <newren@gmail.com>
>> 
>> When exporting a subset of commits on a branch that do not go back to a
>> root commit (e.g. master~2..master), we still want each exported commit to
>> have the same files in the exported tree as in the original tree.
>> 
>> Signed-off-by: Elijah Newren <newren@gmail.com>
>> ---
>
> Makes sense.

Hmm, does it?

Shouldn't an export with a bottom commit be always considered an
incremental?  Why special case --import-marks?

When you say "I want to export master~2..master", isn't the intention
(unstated, because it is too obvious) that follows it "... because I do
have master~2 already and I would want to replay the export on top of that
state"?  If all of master~2, master~1 and master have a file "frotz" with
exactly the same contents, I thought you wouldn't even have to have that
same contents repeated in the export datastream.

Or am I (again) entirely misunderstanding the intended use case?