Re: [PATCH] check-ignore: fix handling with negated patterns

[Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>]

Elijah Newren <newren@gmail.com> writes:

>> I suspect that the above distorts history.  IIRC, it was meant as a
>> tool to see which exact pattern in the exclude sequence had the
>> final say for the given needle, written primarily as a debugging
>> aid.  In that context, "This rule has the final say", whether the
>> rule is a negative or positive, still means something.
>
> I can reword it; how does the following sound?
>
> check-ignore claims that it reports whether each path it is given is
> excluded.  However, it fails to do so because it did not account for
> negated patterns.

I am not sure about "claims" part.  

Isn't it more like "check-ignore has been the tool that reports the
rule that has final say on each of the paths it is given, but that
is not very useful when the user wants to see if the path is
excluded (e.g. the rule with the final say may be negative).  Let's
change the behaviour so that it reports if the path is excluded or
not"?  As I said, I tend to agree with the direction your patch
wants to go (iow, we probably are better off changing the
behaviour"); the question is if we want a transition plan and how
extensive it needs be if we do.