Re: [RFC PATCH v3 8/8] --sparse for porcelains

[skillzero@gmail.com]

On Mon, Aug 17, 2009 at 4:16 PM, Johannes
Schindelin<Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On Mon, 17 Aug 2009, skillzero@gmail.com wrote:
>
>> On Mon, Aug 17, 2009 at 3:02 PM, Johannes
>> Schindelin<Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de> wrote:
>>
>> > And here comes the problem: if something is treated untracked because
>> > it was outside of the sparse checkout, then I want it to be treated as
>> > untracked _even if_ I happened to broaden the checkout by editing
>> > .git/info/sparse.  The file did not just magically become subject to
>> > overwriting just because I edited .git/info/sparse (which could be a
>> > simple mistake).
>>
>> Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're saying, but why would you want a
>> file that's become part of the checkout by editing .git/info/sparse to
>> still be treated as untracked?
>>
>> If I have a file on that's excluded via .git/info/sparse then I edit
>> .git/info/sparse to include it and switch to a branch that doesn't have
>> that file, I'd expect that file to be deleted from the working copy if
>> the content matches what's in the repository. If it's modified then I'd
>> expect the branch switch to fail (like it would without a sparse
>> checkout).
>
> First things first: with sparse checkout, you should not check out
> _anything_ outside of the focus of the sparse checkout.
>
> So I contend that you would only end up with a sparse'd-out file
> that was formerly tracked if you did something wrong.  That should not
> happen.

I was thinking if you copied the file there manually and changed
.git/info/sparse to include it. I would expect git checkout, git
status, etc. to act as just as if I had never excluded it via
.git/info/sparse, similar to .gitignore and .git/info/exclude.

> The thing is: we need a way to determine quickly and without any
> ambiguity whether a file is tracked, assumed unchanged, or sparse'd-out
> (which Nguyễn calls no-checkout).
>
> And if we change .git/info/sparse, that state _must not_ change.  We did
> not touch the file by editing .git/info/sparse, so the state must be
> unchanged.

I don't know enough to have an opinion on assume-unchanged vs
no-checkout, but if you edit .git/info/sparse it seems like it should
affect whether git cares about a file or not. If a file previously had
the no-checkout bit and you change .git/info/sparse to include the
file, the next time you do something with git, I would expect it to
start caring about that path. For example, I can edit .gitignore and
.git/info/exclude and it notices the next time I use git without
having to do anything special.