Re: checkout extra files

[Jeff King <peff@peff.net>]

On Fri, Sep 07, 2012 at 01:49:15PM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote:

> -- >8 --
> gitcli: contrast wildcard given to shell and to git
> 
> People who are not used to working with shell may intellectually
> understand how the command line argument is massaged by the shell
> but still have a hard time visualizing the difference between
> letting the shell expand fileglobs and having Git see the fileglob
> to use as a pathspec.

I think this is an improvement, but...

> diff --git c/Documentation/gitcli.txt w/Documentation/gitcli.txt
> index ea17f7a..220621b 100644
> --- c/Documentation/gitcli.txt
> +++ w/Documentation/gitcli.txt
> @@ -38,6 +38,22 @@ arguments.  Here are the rules:
>     you have to say either `git diff HEAD --` or `git diff -- HEAD` to
>     disambiguate.
>  
> + * Many commands allow wildcards in paths, but you need to protect
> +them from getting globbed by the shell.  These two mean different things:
> ++
> +--------------------------------
> +$ git checkout -- *.c
> +$ git checkout -- \*.c
> +--------------------------------
> ++
> +The former lets your shell expand the fileglob, and you are asking
> +the dot-C files in your working tree to be overwritten with the version
> +in the index.  The latter passes the `*.c` to Git, and you are asking
> +the paths in the index that match the pattern to be checked out to your
> +working tree.  After running `git add hello.c; rm hello.c`, you will _not_
> +see `hello.c` in your working tree with the former, but with the latter
> +you will.
> +
>  When writing a script that is expected to handle random user-input, it is
>  a good practice to make it explicit which arguments are which by placing
>  disambiguating `--` at appropriate places.

Look at the paragraph below your addition. It is typographically outside
of the bulleted list you are adding to, but it really makes sense
directly after the prior two bullet points, which are explicitly about
disambiguation between revisions and paths. Your addition splits them
apart.

Does it make sense to join that final paragraph into what is now the
third bullet, and then add your new text (the fourth bullet) after?

-Peff