Re: which files are "known to git"?

[Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>]

Hi,

Robert P. J. Day wrote:

>   i did a quick search for that phrase in the current code base and
> came up with:
>
> builtin/difftool.c:		/* The symlink is unknown to Git so read from the filesystem */
> dir.c:		error("pathspec '%s' did not match any file(s) known to git.",
> Documentation/git-rm.txt:removes only the paths that are known to Git.  Giving the name of
> Documentation/git-commit.txt:   be known to Git);
> Documentation/user-manual.txt:error: pathspec '261dfac35cb99d380eb966e102c1197139f7fa24' did not match any file(s) known to git.
> Documentation/gitattributes.txt:	Notice all types of potential whitespace errors known to Git.
> Documentation/git-clean.txt:Normally, only files unknown to Git are removed, but if the `-x`
> Documentation/RelNotes/1.8.2.1.txt: * The code to keep track of what directory names are known to Git on
> Documentation/RelNotes/1.8.1.6.txt: * The code to keep track of what directory names are known to Git on
> Documentation/RelNotes/2.9.0.txt:   known to Git.  They have been taught to do the normalization.
> Documentation/RelNotes/2.8.4.txt:   known to Git.  They have been taught to do the normalization.
> Documentation/RelNotes/1.8.3.txt: * The code to keep track of what directory names are known to Git on
> t/t3005-ls-files-relative.sh:			echo "error: pathspec $sq$f$sq did not match any file(s) known to git."
> t/t3005-ls-files-relative.sh:			echo "error: pathspec $sq$f$sq did not match any file(s) known to git."
>
> so it's not like there's a *ton* of that, but still enough to want to
> get it right. should there be a precise definition for the phrase
> "known to git", or should that phrase simply be banned/replaced?

In my opinion: the latter.

It's not like the phrase represents some concept that we don't have
any other name for.  They're also known as "tracked files" and that
name is more intuitive.

Thanks,
Jonathan