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

[Nguyen Thai Ngoc Duy <pclouds@gmail.com>]

On 8/13/09, Jakub Narebski <jnareb@gmail.com> wrote:
> Nguyen Thai Ngoc Duy <pclouds@gmail.com> writes:
>  > 2009/8/12 Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>:
>
>  > > It could also require core.sparseworktree configuration set to true if we
>  > > are really paranoid, but without the actual sparse specification file
>  > > flipping that configuration to true would not be useful anyway, so in
>  > > practice, giving --sparse-work-tree option to these Porcelain commands
>  > > would be no-op, but --no-sparse-work-tree option would be useful to
>  > > ignore $GIT_DIR/info/sparse and populate the work tree fully.
>  >
>  > Only part "ignore $GIT_DIR/info/sparse" is correct.
>  > "--no-sparse-work-tree" would not clear CE_VALID from all entries in
>  > index (which is good, if you are using CE_VALID for another purpose).
>  >
>  > To quit sparse checkout, you must create an empty
>  > $GIT_DIR/info/sparse, then do "git checkout" or "git read-tree -m -u
>  > HEAD" so that the tree is full populated, then you can remove
>  > $GIT_DIR/info/sparse. Quite unintuitive..
>
>
> Hmmm... this looks like either argument for introducing --full option
>  to git-checkout (ignore CE_VALID bit, checkout everything, and clean
>  CE_VALID (?))...
>
>  ...or for going with _separate_ bit for partial checkout, like in the
>  very first version of this series, which otherwise functions like
>  CE_VALID, or is just used to mark that CE_VALID was set using sparse.

In my opinion, making an empty .git/info/sparse to fully populate
worktree is not too bad. I wanted to have plumbing-level support in
git so that you could try sparse checkout on your projects (possibly
with a few additional scripts to make your life easier). Then good
Porcelain UI may emerge later (or in worst case, people would roll
their own sparse checkout).
-- 
Duy