Re: [PATCH] checkout: add --sparse for restoring files in sparse checkout mode

[Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>]

Duy Nguyen wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 25, 2013 at 1:17 AM, Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com> wrote:

>> Hm, should this be the default?
>>
>> In principle, I would expect
>>
>>         git checkout -- .
>>
>> to make the worktree match the index, respecting the sparse checkout.
>> And something like
>>
>>         git checkout --widen -- .
>>
>> to change the sparse checkout pattern.
[...]
> Changing the default may involve a painful transition phase (e.g. "add
> -u").

I don't think it needs to.  There aren't many people using sparse
checkout even these days, and I think they'd generally be happy about
the change.

But if we want to be conservative until some later point (like 2.1),
perhaps --sparse should be named something like --no-widen?  That
way, I can do

	git checkout --no-widen -- .

to make the worktree match the index, respecting the sparse checkout.
And I can do

	git checkout --widen -- .

to change the sparse checkout pattern.  Meanwhile the confusing
command

	git checkout -- .

would be ill-defined for sparse checkouts --- in past git versions,
if I understand you correctly it acted like --widen, while in some
unspecified future version it may change to mean --no-widen.  No
need for warnings because I doubt anyone is relying on either
behavior.

Would that work?
Jonathan