Sparse worktree always contains root files

Sparse worktree always contains root files

[Jeppe Øland]

Hi there,

I'm trying to use sparse checkouts in a large project, and one oddity
(bug?) came up.

If I do a normal full clone of a repository, then do:
    git worktree add ../sparse --no-checkout
    cd ../sparse
    git sparse-checkout set somepath
    git checkout
Now indeed it is a sparse worktree, but the files from the root
directory are also there.

This also happens with traditional (non-worktree) partial clones.
(I did both shallow, blob-less and tree-less, and all of them behave
the same way)

Regards,
-Jeppe

Re: Sparse worktree always contains root files

[Junio C Hamano]

Jeppe Øland <joland@gmail.com> writes:

> I'm trying to use sparse checkouts in a large project, and one oddity
> (bug?) came up.
>
> If I do a normal full clone of a repository, then do:
>     git worktree add ../sparse --no-checkout
>     cd ../sparse
>     git sparse-checkout set somepath
>     git checkout
> Now indeed it is a sparse worktree, but the files from the root
> directory are also there.

I think this is working as intended.

Without knowing about the non-tree entries' object names, you cannot
create your next commit on top, as you need to be able to compute
the tree object's contents.  You'd update some files in "somepath",
and that directory being populated you can compute the object name
of the tree that represents the state of "somepath" after your
update.  But that object name must be mixed with other things in the
same directory as "somepath" (i.e. in the root tree), so they must
be known.