Re: [PATCH 00/10] [RFC] In-tree sparse-checkout definitions

[Derrick Stolee <stolee@gmail.com>]

On 6/17/2020 9:59 PM, Elijah Newren wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 17, 2020 at 6:42 PM Derrick Stolee <stolee@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> On 6/17/2020 7:14 PM, Elijah Newren wrote:
>> You mentioned in another thread that it is a bit unwieldy for a user
>> to rely on a committed (or staged?) file, so adding the ability to
>> check the working directory first is interesting. I wonder how the
>> timing comes into play when changing HEAD to a new commit? Seems
>> tricky, but solvable.
> 
> Isn't that essentially the same timing issue that comes into play if
> you only look at the index, and are changing HEAD to a new commit?

It adds to the complexity. We can inspect the new index for the
in-tree definition and update the skip-worktree bits before actually
changing the working directory to match the new index. However, if
we trust the working directory copy over the index copy, then we
need to also decide if the working directory copy _would_ change
in this move before using it.

Of course, maybe I'm making it over-complicated. I still know so
little about the index. I got into this feature due to a simple
pattern-matching problem that I could understand, but now I'm
getting lost in index states and dirty statuses. ;)

Thanks,
-Stolee