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

From: Elijah Newren <newren@gmail.com>
To: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Cc: Elijah Newren via GitGitGadget <gitgitgadget@gmail.com>,
	Git Mailing List <git@vger.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] check-ignore: fix handling with negated patterns
Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2020 10:41:47 -0800	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <CABPp-BEbojaeYkSMR7vntW0SkWf6dVOko5H=jqT-Yv2USRerxA@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <xmqqimk5ks39.fsf@gitster-ct.c.googlers.com>

On Mon, Feb 17, 2020 at 10:05 AM Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:
>
> "Elijah Newren via GitGitGadget" <gitgitgadget@gmail.com> writes:
>
> > From: Elijah Newren <newren@gmail.com>
> >
> > check-ignore was meant to check ignore rules the same way git status and
> > other commands would, and to report whether a path is excluded.  It
> > failed to do this (and generated a few bug reports), however, because it
> > did not account for negated patterns.
>
> 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.

Also, I think the "This rule has the final say" functionality of the
tool might still be useful, so I kept it -- see my updates to the
--verbose flag (mentioned later in the commit message).

> It is just the behavior is _much_ less useful for those who want to
> know what the final say is, and I tend to agree that we probably are
> better off changing its output to reflect "so, are we ignoring the
> path after all? yes/no?" because we are pretty much done with
> debugging the exclude API implementation.