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authorNguyễn Thái Ngọc Duy <pclouds@gmail.com>2009-08-20 20:47:05 +0700
committerJunio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>2009-08-23 17:13:33 -0700
commited5336a7541e19b267de53afc8d15cffdbde8286 (patch)
tree941e9dca8b8035ec1cc762d80f1d526a36afb723 /Documentation/git-read-tree.txt
parentcb097534230a6bd7438e19ce6dff719697cbf983 (diff)
downloadgit-ed5336a7541e19b267de53afc8d15cffdbde8286.tar.gz
git-ed5336a7541e19b267de53afc8d15cffdbde8286.tar.xz
Introduce "sparse checkout"
With skip-worktree bit, you can manually set it to unwanted files, then remove them: you would have the so-called sparse checkout. The disadvantages are: - Porcelain tools are not aware of this. Everytime you do an operation that may update working directory, skip-worktree may be cleared out. You have to set them again. - You still have to remove skip-worktree'd files manually, which is boring and ineffective. These will be addressed in the following patches. This patch gives an idea what is "sparse checkout" in Documentation/git-read-tree.txt. This file is chosen instead of git-checkout.txt because it is quite technical and user-unfriendly. I'd expect git-checkout.txt to have something when Porcelain support is done. Signed-off-by: Nguyễn Thái Ngọc Duy <pclouds@gmail.com> Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/git-read-tree.txt')
-rw-r--r--Documentation/git-read-tree.txt44
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diff --git a/Documentation/git-read-tree.txt b/Documentation/git-read-tree.txt
index 4a932b08c..8b3971685 100644
--- a/Documentation/git-read-tree.txt
+++ b/Documentation/git-read-tree.txt
@@ -360,6 +360,50 @@ middle of doing, and when your working tree is ready (i.e. you
have finished your work-in-progress), attempt the merge again.
+Sparse checkout
+---------------
+
+"Sparse checkout" allows to sparsely populate working directory.
+It uses skip-worktree bit (see linkgit:git-update-index[1]) to tell
+Git whether a file on working directory is worth looking at.
+
+"git read-tree" and other merge-based commands ("git merge", "git
+checkout"...) can help maintaining skip-worktree bitmap and working
+directory update. `$GIT_DIR/info/sparse-checkout` is used to
+define the skip-worktree reference bitmap. When "git read-tree" needs
+to update working directory, it will reset skip-worktree bit in index
+based on this file, which uses the same syntax as .gitignore files.
+If an entry matches a pattern in this file, skip-worktree will be
+set on that entry. Otherwise, skip-worktree will be unset.
+
+Then it compares the new skip-worktree value with the previous one. If
+skip-worktree turns from unset to set, it will add the corresponding
+file back. If it turns from set to unset, that file will be removed.
+
+While `$GIT_DIR/info/sparse-checkout` is usually used to specify what
+files are in. You can also specify what files are _not_ in, using
+negate patterns. For example, to remove file "unwanted":
+
+----------------
+*
+!unwanted
+----------------
+
+Another tricky thing is fully repopulating working directory when you
+no longer want sparse checkout. You cannot just disable "sparse
+checkout" because skip-worktree are still in the index and you working
+directory is still sparsely populated. You should re-populate working
+directory with the `$GIT_DIR/info/sparse-checkout` file content as
+follows:
+
+----------------
+*
+----------------
+
+Then you can disable sparse checkout. Sparse checkout support in "git
+read-tree" and similar commands is disabled by default.
+
+
SEE ALSO
--------
linkgit:git-write-tree[1]; linkgit:git-ls-files[1];