Re: [PATCH 0/9] Sparse index: integrate with 'clean', 'checkout-index', 'update-index'

[Elijah Newren <newren@gmail.com>]

On Tue, Jan 4, 2022 at 9:37 AM Victoria Dye via GitGitGadget
<gitgitgadget@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> This series continues the work to integrate commands with the sparse index,
> adding integrations with 'git clean', 'git checkout-index', and 'git
> update-index'. These three commands, while useful in their own right, are
> updated mainly because they're used in 'git stash'. A future series will
> integrate sparse index with 'stash' directly, but its subcommands must be
> integrated to avoid the performance cost of each one expanding and
> collapsing the index.

Thanks for working on these; it's very nice to see others continuing
to work on sparse-checkout issues, since it still feels somewhat
incomplete to me.  This work is perhaps less glamorous since you're
starting to work on commands less frequently used by users, but I
still feel it's very important.  Thanks for your diligence.

> The series is broken up into 4 parts:
>
>  * Patches 1-2 are minor fixups to the 'git reset' sparse index integration
>    in response to discussion [1] that came after the series was ready for
>    merge to 'next'.

These look good.

>  * Patch 3 integrates 'git clean' with the sparse index.

Yeah, since clean tends to work with untracked files instead of
tracked, and SKIP_WORKTREE is all about tracked files, I'd expect the
conversion would be simple.  Nice to see verification that it was.

>  * Patches 4-6 integrate 'git checkout-index' with the sparse index and
>    introduce a new '--ignore-skip-worktree-bits' option for use with 'git
>    checkout-index --all'.
>    * This involves changing the behavior of '--all' to respect
>      'skip-worktree' by default (i.e., it won't check out 'skip-worktree'
>      files). The '--ignore-skip-worktree-bits' option can be specified to
>      force checkout of 'skip-worktree' files, if desired.

I think the basic idea makes sense, and the patches are certainly
moving in the right direction.

If others agree with the series I'm about to submit, then patch 4
looks fine as-is and there's just a minor item about
--ignore-skip-worktree-bits without --all for checkout-index in Patch
5 (either further behavior changes, or a more detailed commit
message).  If others disagree with that other series, then I think
both patches 4 & 5 should do more work to avoid problems with
present-despite-SKIP_WORKTREE files.

However, the issues raised in Patch 7 suggest that Patch 5 might need
some reworking (independent of the other series I'm about to submit).

Patch 6 looks good either way.

>  * Patches 7-9 integrate 'git update-index' with the sparse index.
>    * Note that, although this integrates the sparse index with
>      '--cacheinfo', sparse directories still cannot be updated using that
>      option (see the prior discussion [2] for more details on why)

Patch 9 might benefit from a small commit message rewording.

I either misunderstood Patch 8, or it has a disconnect of some kind
between the commit message and the testcase.

I've left various comments on patch 7; it'll probably need updates and
likely points to further changes needed in patch 5.


Anyway, I tend to concentrate on perceived issues when reviewing
rather than on what looks good, but despite the fact that I think
there are some further improvements needed, overall I think this looks
like some nice work.  Keep it up!