Re: Submodule/contents conflict

[Stefan Beller <sbeller@google.com>]

On Tue, Apr 25, 2017 at 7:51 PM, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:
> "Philip Oakley" <philipoakley@iee.org> writes:
>
>> As I recall Christoph was using checkout to copy a file (e.g. a
>> template file) from an older commit/revision into his worktree, and
>> was suprised that this (git checkout <tree> <path>) also _staged_ the
>> file, rather than simply letting it be in a modified/untracked state.
>
> This probably is taking it even further than the original topic, but
> I raise this weather-balloon to see if anybody is interested.
>
> In the modern day, it might be useful if the "--working-tree-only"
> mode added a new file as an intent-to-add entry to the index, but
> that is not what "git apply (no other options)" (which is the gold
> standard for command that operates on the working tree and/or on the
> index) does, so it is not done in this patch.  IOW, if you grab a
> path that does not exist in your index out of <tree-ish>, you will
> write out an untracked file to the working tree.
>
> -- >8 --
> Subject: [PATCH] checkout: add --working-tree-only option
>
> "git checkout <tree-ish> <pathspec>" has always copied the blob from
> the tree-ish to the index before checking them out to the working tree.
>
> Some users may want to grab a blob out of a tree-ish directly to the
> working tree, without updating the index, so that "git diff" can be
> used to assess the damage and adjust the file contents taken from a
> different branch to be more appropriate for the current branch.

That makes sense for the in-repo-point-of-view.
I assumed a use case like this:

  A user may want to extract a file from a given tree-ish via
  GIT_WORK_TREE=/tmp/place git checkout <tree> -- <file>
  without modifying the repository (i.e. index) at all. For this
  we'd need an option to modify the working tree only.

> The new option "--working-tree-only" allows exactly that.
>
> In the hindsight, when a command works on the working tree and/or

s/the// ?

> the index, the usual convention is:
>
>  - with no other option, the command works only on the working tree;
>
>  - with "--cached" option, the command works only on the index; and
>
>  - with "--index" option, the command works on both the working tree
>    and the index.

I never realized this as a usual convention explicitly. Thanks for pointing
it out.

> So we probably should have triggered the default behaviour under the
> "--index" option, and triggered this "--working-tree-only" mode of
> behaviour when "--index" option is not given.  From the same point
> of view, "git checkout --cached <tree-ish> <pathspec>" would have
> done the same as "git reset <tree-ish> <pathspec>" would do.  And
> that may have made the command set a bit more consistent.
>
> But that is merely a hindsight being 20/20, oh well.
>
> Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
> ---
>  Documentation/git-checkout.txt | 22 +++++++++++++++-------
>  builtin/checkout.c             | 10 +++++++++-
>  t/t2022-checkout-paths.sh      | 21 +++++++++++++++++++++
>  3 files changed, 45 insertions(+), 8 deletions(-)
>
> diff --git a/Documentation/git-checkout.txt b/Documentation/git-checkout.txt
> index 8e2c0662dd..201677752e 100644
> --- a/Documentation/git-checkout.txt
> +++ b/Documentation/git-checkout.txt
> @@ -14,6 +14,7 @@ SYNOPSIS
>  'git checkout' [-q] [-f] [-m] [[-b|-B|--orphan] <new_branch>] [<start_point>]
>  'git checkout' [-f|--ours|--theirs|-m|--conflict=<style>] [<tree-ish>] [--] <paths>...
>  'git checkout' [-p|--patch] [<tree-ish>] [--] [<paths>...]
> +'git checkout' --working-tree-only <tree-ish> [--] [<paths>...]
>
>  DESCRIPTION
>  -----------
> @@ -81,13 +82,14 @@ Omitting <branch> detaches HEAD at the tip of the current branch.
>  'git checkout' [-p|--patch] [<tree-ish>] [--] <pathspec>...::
>
>         When <paths> or `--patch` are given, 'git checkout' does *not*
> -       switch branches.  It updates the named paths in the working tree
> -       from the index file or from a named <tree-ish> (most often a
> -       commit).  In this case, the `-b` and `--track` options are
> -       meaningless and giving either of them results in an error.  The
> -       <tree-ish> argument can be used to specify a specific tree-ish
> -       (i.e.  commit, tag or tree) to update the index for the given
> -       paths before updating the working tree.
> +       switch branches.  In this case, the `-b` and `--track` options
> +       are meaningless and giving either of them results in an error.
> ++
> +The command checks out blobs for paths that match the given
> +<pathspec> from the index to the working tree.  When an optional
> +<tree-ish> is given, the blobs for paths that match the given
> +<pathspec> are copied from the <tree-ish> to the index before
> +they are checked out of the index.
>  +
>  'git checkout' with <paths> or `--patch` is used to restore modified or
>  deleted paths to their original contents from the index or replace paths
> @@ -101,6 +103,12 @@ specific side of the merge can be checked out of the index by
>  using `--ours` or `--theirs`.  With `-m`, changes made to the working tree
>  file can be discarded to re-create the original conflicted merge result.
>
> +'git checkout' --working-tree-only <tree-ish> [--] <pathspec>...::
> +       Similar to `git checkout <tree-ish> [--] <pathspec>`, but
> +       the index file is left in the same state as it was before
> +       running this command.

Adding this as a new mode seems like a "patch after the fact",
whereas the wording hints that this may be included in the prior
part, but I find it hard to come up with a good description there.

> diff --git a/builtin/checkout.c b/builtin/checkout.c
> index 9b2a5b31d4..d214e99521 100644
> --- a/builtin/checkout.c
> +++ b/builtin/checkout.c
> @@ -37,6 +37,7 @@ struct checkout_opts {
>         int overwrite_ignore;
>         int ignore_skipworktree;
>         int ignore_other_worktrees;
> +       int no_index;
>         int show_progress;
>
>         const char *new_branch;
> @@ -268,6 +269,9 @@ static int checkout_paths(const struct checkout_opts *opts,
>                 die(_("Cannot update paths and switch to branch '%s' at the same time."),
>                     opts->new_branch);
>
> +       if (opts->no_index && !opts->source_tree)
> +               die(_("'--working-tree-only' cannot be used without tree-ish"));

double negation, maybe:

  "--working-tree-only requires tree-ish"

> @@ -370,7 +374,9 @@ static int checkout_paths(const struct checkout_opts *opts,
>                 }
>         }
>
> -       if (write_locked_index(&the_index, lock_file, COMMIT_LOCK))
> +       if (opts->no_index)
> +               ; /* discard the in-core index */
> +       else if (write_locked_index(&the_index, lock_file, COMMIT_LOCK))
>                 die(_("unable to write new index file"));
>
>         read_ref_full("HEAD", 0, rev.hash, NULL);
> @@ -1161,6 +1167,8 @@ int cmd_checkout(int argc, const char **argv, const char *prefix)
>                 OPT_BOOL(0, "ignore-other-worktrees", &opts.ignore_other_worktrees,
>                          N_("do not check if another worktree is holding the given ref")),
>                 OPT_BOOL(0, "progress", &opts.show_progress, N_("force progress reporting")),
> +               OPT_BOOL(0, "working-tree-only", &opts.no_index, N_("checkout to working tree only without touching the index")),
> +

nit: no need for extra empty line here.

> +test_expect_success 'working-tree-only option leaves checked out files unadded' '
> +       git reset --hard &&
> +       git checkout -b pu next &&
> +       echo another >>file1 &&
> +       echo exists >file3 &&
> +       git add file3 &&
> +       git commit -a -m another &&
> +       git checkout next &&

Up to here it is all preparation; I started to give an argument
on why using "another" for both the commit message and the file content
was suboptimal, but I was wrong. This seems to be best after some consideration.

The next paragraph checks for
'working-tree-only option populates the working tree, but doesn't touch index'

> +       ! grep another file1 &&
> +       git checkout --working-tree-only pu file1 file3 &&
> +       grep another file1 &&
> +       test_must_fail git grep --cached another file1 &&

but only for file1, whereas the next paragraph checks it for file3.

> +       grep exists file3 &&
> +       git ls-files file3 >actual &&
> +       >expect &&
> +       test_cmp expect actual

Thanks,
Stefan