<feed xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom'>
<title>git/sparse-index.c, branch v2.36.2</title>
<subtitle>Mirror of https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/git/git.git/
</subtitle>
<id>https://git.shady.money/git/atom?h=v2.36.2</id>
<link rel='self' href='https://git.shady.money/git/atom?h=v2.36.2'/>
<link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='https://git.shady.money/git/'/>
<updated>2022-03-09T21:38:23Z</updated>
<entry>
<title>Merge branch 'en/present-despite-skipped'</title>
<updated>2022-03-09T21:38:23Z</updated>
<author>
<name>Junio C Hamano</name>
<email>gitster@pobox.com</email>
</author>
<published>2022-03-09T21:38:23Z</published>
<link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='https://git.shady.money/git/commit/?id=82386b44963f127d6dbe25d48889bde3149e177c'/>
<id>urn:sha1:82386b44963f127d6dbe25d48889bde3149e177c</id>
<content type='text'>
In sparse-checkouts, files mis-marked as missing from the working tree
could lead to later problems.  Such files were hard to discover, and
harder to correct.  Automatically detecting and correcting the marking
of such files has been added to avoid these problems.

* en/present-despite-skipped:
  repo_read_index: add config to expect files outside sparse patterns
  Accelerate clear_skip_worktree_from_present_files() by caching
  Update documentation related to sparsity and the skip-worktree bit
  repo_read_index: clear SKIP_WORKTREE bit from files present in worktree
  unpack-trees: fix accidental loss of user changes
  t1011: add testcase demonstrating accidental loss of user modifications
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
<title>repo_read_index: add config to expect files outside sparse patterns</title>
<updated>2022-03-02T07:37:48Z</updated>
<author>
<name>Elijah Newren</name>
<email>newren@gmail.com</email>
</author>
<published>2022-02-26T06:12:22Z</published>
<link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='https://git.shady.money/git/commit/?id=ecc7c8841de40a38637680509f7e1e6ce25d89ca'/>
<id>urn:sha1:ecc7c8841de40a38637680509f7e1e6ce25d89ca</id>
<content type='text'>
Typically with sparse checkouts, we expect files outside the sparsity
patterns to be marked as SKIP_WORKTREE and be missing from the working
tree.  Sometimes this expectation would be violated however; including
in cases such as:
  * users grabbing files from elsewhere and writing them to the worktree
    (perhaps by editing a cached copy in an editor, copying/renaming, or
     even untarring)
  * various git commands having incomplete or no support for the
    SKIP_WORKTREE bit[1,2]
  * users attempting to "abort" a sparse-checkout operation with a
    not-so-early Ctrl+C (updating $GIT_DIR/info/sparse-checkout and the
    working tree is not atomic)[3].
When the SKIP_WORKTREE bit in the index did not reflect the presence of
the file in the working tree, it traditionally caused confusion and was
difficult to detect and recover from.  So, in a sparse checkout, since
af6a51875a (repo_read_index: clear SKIP_WORKTREE bit from files present
in worktree, 2022-01-14), Git automatically clears the SKIP_WORKTREE
bit at index read time for entries corresponding to files that are
present in the working tree.

There is another workflow, however, where it is expected that paths
outside the sparsity patterns appear to exist in the working tree and
that they do not lose the SKIP_WORKTREE bit, at least until they get
modified.  A Git-aware virtual file system[4] takes advantage of its
position as a file system driver to expose all files in the working
tree, fetch them on demand using partial clone on access, and tell Git
to pay attention to them on demand by updating the sparse checkout
pattern on writes.  This means that commands like "git status" only have
to examine files that have potentially been modified, whereas commands
like "ls" are able to show the entire codebase without requiring manual
updates to the sparse checkout pattern.

Thus since af6a51875a, Git with such Git-aware virtual file systems
unsets the SKIP_WORKTREE bit for all files and commands like "git
status" have to fetch and examine them all.

Introduce a configuration setting sparse.expectFilesOutsideOfPatterns to
allow limiting the tracked set of files to a small set once again.  A
Git-aware virtual file system or other application that wants to
maintain files outside of the sparse checkout can set this in a
repository to instruct Git not to check for the presence of
SKIP_WORKTREE files.  The setting defaults to false, so most users of
sparse checkout will still get the benefit of an automatically updating
index to recover from the variety of difficult issues detailed in
af6a51875a for paths with SKIP_WORKTREE set despite the path being
present.

[1] https://lore.kernel.org/git/xmqqbmb1a7ga.fsf@gitster-ct.c.googlers.com/
[2] The three long paragraphs in the middle of
    https://lore.kernel.org/git/CABPp-BH9tju7WVm=QZDOvaMDdZbpNXrVWQdN-jmfN8wC6YVhmw@mail.gmail.com/
[3] https://lore.kernel.org/git/CABPp-BFnFpzwGC11TLoLs8YK5yiisA5D5-fFjXnJsbESVDwZsA@mail.gmail.com/
[4] such as the vfsd described in
https://lore.kernel.org/git/20220207190320.2960362-1-jonathantanmy@google.com/

Signed-off-by: Jonathan Nieder &lt;jrnieder@gmail.com&gt;
Signed-off-by: Elijah Newren &lt;newren@gmail.com&gt;
Reviewed-by: Jonathan Nieder &lt;jrnieder@gmail.com&gt;
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano &lt;gitster@pobox.com&gt;
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
<title>Merge branch 'ds/sparse-checkout-requires-per-worktree-config'</title>
<updated>2022-02-25T23:47:33Z</updated>
<author>
<name>Junio C Hamano</name>
<email>gitster@pobox.com</email>
</author>
<published>2022-02-25T23:47:33Z</published>
<link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='https://git.shady.money/git/commit/?id=6249ce2d1b9b60e7aa630d370e68c87ef6331629'/>
<id>urn:sha1:6249ce2d1b9b60e7aa630d370e68c87ef6331629</id>
<content type='text'>
"git sparse-checkout" wants to work with per-worktree configuration,
but did not work well in a worktree attached to a bare repository.

* ds/sparse-checkout-requires-per-worktree-config:
  config: make git_configset_get_string_tmp() private
  worktree: copy sparse-checkout patterns and config on add
  sparse-checkout: set worktree-config correctly
  config: add repo_config_set_worktree_gently()
  worktree: create init_worktree_config()
  Documentation: add extensions.worktreeConfig details
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
<title>sparse-checkout: set worktree-config correctly</title>
<updated>2022-02-08T17:49:20Z</updated>
<author>
<name>Derrick Stolee</name>
<email>dstolee@microsoft.com</email>
</author>
<published>2022-02-07T21:33:01Z</published>
<link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='https://git.shady.money/git/commit/?id=7316dc5f6f2c8297d32e47d5859933ffacb6c00e'/>
<id>urn:sha1:7316dc5f6f2c8297d32e47d5859933ffacb6c00e</id>
<content type='text'>
`git sparse-checkout set/init` enables worktree-specific
configuration[*] by setting extensions.worktreeConfig=true, but neglects
to perform the additional necessary bookkeeping of relocating
`core.bare=true` and `core.worktree` from $GIT_COMMON_DIR/config to
$GIT_COMMON_DIR/config.worktree, as documented in git-worktree.txt. As a
result of this oversight, these settings, which are nonsensical for
secondary worktrees, can cause Git commands to incorrectly consider a
worktree bare (in the case of `core.bare`) or operate on the wrong
worktree (in the case of `core.worktree`). Fix this problem by taking
advantage of the recently-added init_worktree_config() which enables
`extensions.worktreeConfig` and takes care of necessary bookkeeping.

While at it, for backward-compatibility reasons, also stop upgrading the
repository format to "1" since doing so is (unintentionally) not
required to take advantage of `extensions.worktreeConfig`, as explained
by 11664196ac ("Revert "check_repository_format_gently(): refuse
extensions for old repositories"", 2020-07-15).

[*] The main reason to use worktree-specific config for the
sparse-checkout builtin was to avoid enabling sparse-checkout patterns
in one and causing a loss of files in another. If a worktree does not
have a sparse-checkout patterns file, then the sparse-checkout logic
will not kick in on that worktree.

Reported-by: Sean Allred &lt;allred.sean@gmail.com&gt;
Helped-by: Eric Sunshine &lt;sunshine@sunshineco.com&gt;
Signed-off-by: Derrick Stolee &lt;dstolee@microsoft.com&gt;
Reviewed-by: Elijah Newren &lt;newren@gmail.com&gt;
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano &lt;gitster@pobox.com&gt;
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
<title>sparse-index: sparse index is disallowed when split index is active</title>
<updated>2022-01-24T01:06:05Z</updated>
<author>
<name>Johannes Schindelin</name>
<email>johannes.schindelin@gmx.de</email>
</author>
<published>2022-01-19T17:29:37Z</published>
<link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='https://git.shady.money/git/commit/?id=ae103c37d370e5c1b0720159e9582cb56b7c53f0'/>
<id>urn:sha1:ae103c37d370e5c1b0720159e9582cb56b7c53f0</id>
<content type='text'>
In 6e773527b6b (sparse-index: convert from full to sparse, 2021-03-30),
we introduced initial support for a sparse index, and were careful to
avoid converting to a sparse index in the presence of a split index.

However, when we _just_ read a freshly-initialized index, it might not
contain a split index even if _writing_ it will add one by virtue of
being asked for via the `GIT_TEST_SPLIT_INDEX` variable.

We did not notice any problems with checking _only_ for `split_index`
(and not `GIT_TEST_SPLIT_INDEX`) right until both
`vd/sparse-sparsity-fix-on-read` _and_ `vd/sparse-reset` were merged.

Those two topics' interplay triggers a bug in conjunction with running
t1091.15 when `GIT_TEST_SPLIT_INDEX=true` in the following way:
`vd/sparse-sparsity-fix-on-read` ensures that the index is made sparse
right after reading, and `vd/sparse-reset` ensures that the index is
made non-sparse again unless running in the `--soft` mode. Since the
split index feature is incompatible with the sparse index feature, we
see a symptom like this:

	fatal: position for replacement 4 exceeds base index size 4

Let's fix this by avoiding the conversion to a sparse index when
`GIT_TEST_SPLIT_INDEX=true`.

Signed-off-by: Johannes Schindelin &lt;johannes.schindelin@gmx.de&gt;
Reviewed-by: Elijah Newren &lt;newren@gmail.com&gt;
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano &lt;gitster@pobox.com&gt;
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
<title>Accelerate clear_skip_worktree_from_present_files() by caching</title>
<updated>2022-01-14T22:44:07Z</updated>
<author>
<name>Elijah Newren</name>
<email>newren@gmail.com</email>
</author>
<published>2022-01-14T15:59:43Z</published>
<link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='https://git.shady.money/git/commit/?id=d79d29935262f8422a6e620bd33cc2fce28e669d'/>
<id>urn:sha1:d79d29935262f8422a6e620bd33cc2fce28e669d</id>
<content type='text'>
Trying to clear the skip-worktree bit from files that are present does
present some computational overhead, for sparse-checkouts.  (We do not
do the bit clearing in non-sparse-checkouts.)  Optimize it as follows:

Rather than lstat()'ing every SKIP_WORKTREE path, take advantage of the
fact that entire directories will often be missing, especially for cone
mode and even more so ever since commit 55dfcf9591 ("sparse-checkout:
clear tracked sparse dirs", 2021-09-08).  If we have already determined
that the parent directory of a file (or other previous ancestor) does
not exist, then the file cannot exist either so we do not need to
lstat() it separately.

Timings for p2000 included below, reformatted to fit in normal commit
message line lengths, which compare three things:
  * Timings before this series
  * Timings of the unoptimized version of
    clear_skip_worktree_from_present_files() from a few commits ago
  * Timings after the optimization in this commit

(NOTE: t/perf/ appears to have timing resolution only down to 0.01 s,
which presents significant measurement error when timings only differ by
0.01s.  I don't trust any such timings below, and yet all the optimized
results differ by at most 0.01s.)

Test        Before Series    Unoptimized              Optimized
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
*git status*
full-v3     0.15(0.10+0.06)  0.32(0.16+0.17) +113.3%  0.16(0.10+0.07) +6.7%
full-v4     0.15(0.11+0.05)  0.32(0.17+0.16) +113.3%  0.16(0.11+0.05) +6.7%
sparse-v3   0.04(0.03+0.04)  0.04(0.02+0.05) +0.0%    0.04(0.02+0.05) +0.0%
sparse-v4   0.04(0.03+0.04)  0.04(0.02+0.05) +0.0%    0.04(0.03+0.05) +0.0%

*git add -A*
full-v3     0.40(0.30+0.07)  0.56(0.36+0.17) +40.0%   0.39(0.30+0.07) -2.5%
full-v4     0.37(0.28+0.07)  0.54(0.37+0.16) +45.9%   0.38(0.29+0.07) +2.7%
sparse-v3   0.06(0.04+0.05)  0.08(0.05+0.05) +33.3%   0.06(0.05+0.04) +0.0%
sparse-v4   0.05(0.03+0.05)  0.05(0.04+0.04) +0.0%    0.06(0.04+0.05) +20.0%

*git add .*
full-v3     0.40(0.31+0.07)  0.57(0.37+0.17) +42.5%   0.41(0.30+0.08) +2.5%
full-v4     0.38(0.30+0.06)  0.55(0.37+0.16) +44.7%   0.38(0.30+0.06) +0.0%
sparse-v3   0.06(0.04+0.05)  0.06(0.05+0.04) +0.0%    0.06(0.03+0.05) +0.0%
sparse-v4   0.06(0.05+0.05)  0.06(0.04+0.05) +0.0%    0.06(0.04+0.06) +0.0%

*git commit -a -m A*
full-v3     0.41(0.32+0.06)  0.58(0.39+0.17) +41.5%   0.42(0.32+0.07) +2.4%
full-v4     0.39(0.30+0.07)  0.56(0.38+0.17) +43.6%   0.40(0.31+0.07) +2.6%
sparse-v3   0.04(0.03+0.04)  0.04(0.03+0.04) +0.0%    0.04(0.03+0.04) +0.0%
sparse-v4   0.04(0.03+0.05)  0.04(0.03+0.05) +0.0%    0.04(0.03+0.04) +0.0%

*git checkout -f -*
full-v3     0.56(0.46+0.07)  0.73(0.55+0.16) +30.4%   0.57(0.47+0.08) +1.8%
full-v4     0.54(0.45+0.07)  0.71(0.53+0.17) +31.5%   0.55(0.45+0.07) +1.9%
sparse-v3   0.06(0.04+0.04)  0.06(0.04+0.05) +0.0%    0.06(0.04+0.05) +0.0%
sparse-v4   0.05(0.05+0.04)  0.05(0.04+0.05) +0.0%    0.06(0.04+0.05) +20.0%

*git reset*
full-v3     0.34(0.26+0.05)  0.51(0.34+0.15) +50.0%   0.34(0.26+0.06) +0.0%
full-v4     0.32(0.24+0.06)  0.49(0.32+0.15) +53.1%   0.33(0.25+0.06) +3.1%
sparse-v3   0.04(0.03+0.04)  0.04(0.03+0.04) +0.0%    0.04(0.03+0.04) +0.0%
sparse-v4   0.03(0.03+0.04)  0.03(0.02+0.04) +0.0%    0.03(0.03+0.04) +0.0%

*git reset --hard*
full-v3     0.57(0.46+0.07)  0.90(0.61+0.25) +57.9%   0.57(0.45+0.08) +0.0%
full-v4     0.54(0.46+0.05)  0.88(0.59+0.26) +63.0%   0.55(0.45+0.07) +1.9%
sparse-v3   0.07(0.03+0.03)  0.07(0.04+0.03) +0.0%    0.07(0.03+0.03) +0.0%
sparse-v4   0.06(0.03+0.03)  0.06(0.04+0.02) +0.0%    0.06(0.03+0.03) +0.0%

*git reset -- does-not-exist*
full-v3     0.35(0.27+0.06)  0.52(0.32+0.17) +48.6%   0.35(0.27+0.06) +0.0%
full-v4     0.33(0.26+0.05)  0.50(0.33+0.15) +51.5%   0.33(0.26+0.06) +0.0%
sparse-v3   0.04(0.03+0.04)  0.04(0.03+0.04) +0.0%    0.04(0.03+0.04) +0.0%
sparse-v4   0.04(0.02+0.04)  0.03(0.02+0.04) -25.0%   0.03(0.02+0.04) -25.0%

*git diff*
full-v3     0.07(0.04+0.04)  0.24(0.11+0.14) +242.9%  0.07(0.04+0.04) +0.0%
full-v4     0.07(0.03+0.05)  0.24(0.13+0.12) +242.9%  0.08(0.04+0.05) +14.3%
sparse-v3   0.02(0.01+0.04)  0.02(0.01+0.04) +0.0%    0.02(0.01+0.05) +0.0%
sparse-v4   0.02(0.02+0.03)  0.02(0.01+0.04) +0.0%    0.02(0.01+0.04) +0.0%

*git diff --cached*
full-v3     0.05(0.03+0.02)  0.22(0.12+0.09) +340.0%  0.05(0.03+0.01) +0.0%
full-v4     0.05(0.03+0.01)  0.23(0.12+0.11) +360.0%  0.05(0.03+0.02) +0.0%
sparse-v3   0.01(0.00+0.00)  0.01(0.00+0.00) +0.0%    0.01(0.00+0.00) +0.0%
sparse-v4   0.01(0.00+0.00)  0.01(0.00+0.00) +0.0%    0.01(0.00+0.00) +0.0%

*git blame f2/f4/a*
full-v3     0.18(0.13+0.05)  0.52(0.29+0.23) +188.9%  0.19(0.15+0.04) +5.6%
full-v4     0.19(0.15+0.04)  0.52(0.28+0.23) +173.7%  0.19(0.14+0.04) +0.0%
sparse-v3   0.10(0.08+0.02)  0.10(0.09+0.01) +0.0%    0.10(0.09+0.01) +0.0%
sparse-v4   0.10(0.08+0.02)  0.10(0.08+0.02) +0.0%    0.10(0.08+0.02) +0.0%

*git blame f2/f4/f3/a*
full-v3     0.45(0.36+0.08)  0.78(0.51+0.27) +73.3%   0.45(0.37+0.08) +0.0%
full-v4     0.45(0.37+0.08)  0.78(0.51+0.26) +73.3%   0.45(0.37+0.08) +0.0%
sparse-v3   0.36(0.32+0.04)  0.36(0.31+0.05) +0.0%    0.36(0.31+0.04) +0.0%
sparse-v4   0.36(0.31+0.05)  0.36(0.31+0.05) +0.0%    0.36(0.31+0.04) +0.0%

*git checkout-index -f --all*
full-v3     0.07(0.02+0.05)  0.24(0.12+0.12) +242.9%  0.08(0.04+0.04) +14.3%
full-v4     0.07(0.03+0.04)  0.24(0.11+0.13) +242.9%  0.08(0.03+0.04) +14.3%
sparse-v3   0.04(0.01+0.03)  0.04(0.00+0.03) +0.0%    0.04(0.01+0.03) +0.0%
sparse-v4   0.04(0.01+0.02)  0.04(0.01+0.03) +0.0%    0.04(0.01+0.02) +0.0%

*git update-index --add --remove f2/f4/a*
full-v3     0.29(0.23+0.02)  0.46(0.30+0.12) +58.6%   0.30(0.24+0.02) +3.4%
full-v4     0.27(0.22+0.02)  0.45(0.29+0.12) +66.7%   0.28(0.22+0.03) +3.7%
sparse-v3   0.02(0.02+0.00)  0.02(0.01+0.00) +0.0%    0.02(0.01+0.00) +0.0%
sparse-v4   0.02(0.02+0.00)  0.02(0.02+0.00) +0.0%    0.02(0.02+0.00) +0.0%

So, with the optimization, the extra work appears to be essentially 0
for sparse-checkouts that are also using sparse-indexes (even before my
optimization), and the extra work appears to be just marginally more
than 0 for sparse-checkouts that are using full indexes.

Signed-off-by: Elijah Newren &lt;newren@gmail.com&gt;
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano &lt;gitster@pobox.com&gt;
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
<title>repo_read_index: clear SKIP_WORKTREE bit from files present in worktree</title>
<updated>2022-01-14T22:43:22Z</updated>
<author>
<name>Elijah Newren</name>
<email>newren@gmail.com</email>
</author>
<published>2022-01-14T15:59:41Z</published>
<link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='https://git.shady.money/git/commit/?id=af6a51875a44c0bd16a21329456aadde615a2f46'/>
<id>urn:sha1:af6a51875a44c0bd16a21329456aadde615a2f46</id>
<content type='text'>
The fix is short (~30 lines), but the description is not.  Sorry.

There is a set of problems caused by files in what I'll refer to as the
"present-despite-SKIP_WORKTREE" state.  This commit aims to not just fix
these problems, but remove the entire class as a possibility -- for
those using sparse checkouts.  But first, we need to understand the
problems this class presents.  A quick outline:

   * Problems
     * User facing issues
     * Problem space complexity
     * Maintenance and code correctness challenges
   * SKIP_WORKTREE expectations in Git
   * Suggested solution
   * Pros/Cons of suggested solution
   * Notes on testcase modifications

=== User facing issues ===

There are various ways for users to get files to be present in the
working copy despite having the SKIP_WORKTREE bit set for that file in
the index.  This may come from:
  * various git commands not really supporting the SKIP_WORKTREE bit[1,2]
  * users grabbing files from elsewhere and writing them to the worktree
    (perhaps even cached in their editor)
  * users attempting to "abort" a sparse-checkout operation with a
    not-so-early Ctrl+C (updating $GIT_DIR/info/sparse-checkout and the
    working tree is not atomic)[3].

Once users have present-despite-SKIP_WORKTREE files, any modifications
users make to these files will be ignored, possibly to users' confusion.

Further:
  * these files will degrade performance for the sparse-index case due
    to requiring the index to be expanded (see commit 55dfcf9591
    ("sparse-checkout: clear tracked sparse dirs", 2021-09-08) for why
    we try to delete entire directories outside the sparse cone).
  * these files will not be updated by by standard commands
    (switch/checkout/pull/merge/rebase will leave them alone unless
    conflicts happen -- and even then, the conflicted file may be
    written somewhere else to avoid overwriting the SKIP_WORKTREE file
    that is present and in the way)
  * there is nothing in Git that users can use to discover such
    files (status, diff, grep, etc. all ignore it)
  * there is no reasonable mechanism to "recover" from such a condition
    (neither `git sparse-checkout reapply` nor `git reset --hard` will
    correct it).

So, not only are users modifications ignored, but the files get
progressively more stale over time.  At some point in the future, they
may change their sparseness specification or disable sparse-checkouts.
At that time, all present-despite-SKIP_WORKTREE files will show up as
having lots of modifications because they represent a version from a
different branch or commit.  These might include user-made local changes
from days before, but the only way to tell is to have users look through
them all closely.

If these users come to others for help, there will be no logs that
explain the issue; it's just a mysterious list of changes.  Users might
adamantly claim (correctly, as it turns out) that they didn't modify
these files, while others presume they did.

[1] https://lore.kernel.org/git/xmqqbmb1a7ga.fsf@gitster-ct.c.googlers.com/
[2] https://lore.kernel.org/git/CABPp-BH9tju7WVm=QZDOvaMDdZbpNXrVWQdN-jmfN8wC6YVhmw@mail.gmail.com/
[3] https://lore.kernel.org/git/CABPp-BFnFpzwGC11TLoLs8YK5yiisA5D5-fFjXnJsbESVDwZsA@mail.gmail.com/

=== Problem space complexity ===

SKIP_WORKTREE has been part of Git for over a decade.  Duy did lots of
work on it initially, and several others have since come along and put
lots of work into it.  Stolee spent most of 2021 on the sparse-index,
with lots of bugfixes along the way including to non-sparse-index cases
as we are still trying to get sparse checkouts to behave reasonably.
Basically every codepath throughout the treat needs to be aware of an
additional type of file: tracked-but-not-present.  The extra type
results in lots of extra testcases and lots of extra code everywhere.

But, the sad thing is that we actually have more than one extra type.
We have tracked, tracked-but-not-present (SKIP_WORKTREE), and
tracked-but-promised-to-not-be-present-but-is-present-anyway
(present-despite-SKIP_WORKTREE).  Two types is a monumental amount of
effort to support, and adding a third feels a bit like insanity[4].

[4] Some examples of which can be seen at
    https://lore.kernel.org/git/CABPp-BGJ_Nvi5TmgriD9Bh6eNXE2EDq2f8e8QKXAeYG3BxZafA@mail.gmail.com/

=== Maintenance and code correctness challenges ===

Matheus' patches to grep stalled for nearly a year, in part because of
complications of how to handle sparse-checkouts appropriately in all
cases[5][6] (with trying to sanely figure out how to sanely handle
present-despite-SKIP_WORKTREE files being one of the complications).
His rm/add follow-ups also took months because of those kinds of
issues[7].  The corner cases with things like submodules and
SKIP_WORKTREE with the addition of present-despite-SKIP_WORKTREE start
becoming really complex[8].

We've had to add ugly logic to merge-ort to attempt to handle
present-despite-SKIP_WORKTREE files[9], and basically just been forced
to give up in merge-recursive knowing full well that we'll sometimes
silently discard user modifications.  Despite stash essentially being a
merge, it needed extra code (beyond what was in merge-ort and
merge-recursive) to manually tweak SKIP_WORKTREE bits in order to avoid
a few different bugs that'd result in an early abort with a partial
stash application[10].

[5] See https://lore.kernel.org/git/5f3f7ac77039d41d1692ceae4b0c5df3bb45b74a.1612901326.git.matheus.bernardino@usp.br/#t
    and the dates on the thread; also Matheus and I had several
    conversations off-list trying to resolve the issues over that time
[6] ...it finally kind of got unstuck after
    https://lore.kernel.org/git/CABPp-BGJ_Nvi5TmgriD9Bh6eNXE2EDq2f8e8QKXAeYG3BxZafA@mail.gmail.com/
[7] See for example
    https://lore.kernel.org/git/CABPp-BHwNoVnooqDFPAsZxBT9aR5Dwk5D9sDRCvYSb8akxAJgA@mail.gmail.com/#t
    and quotes like "The core functionality of sparse-checkout has always
    been only partially implemented", a statement I still believe is true
    today.
[8] https://lore.kernel.org/git/pull.809.git.git.1592356884310.gitgitgadget@gmail.com/
[9] See commit 66b209b86a ("merge-ort: implement CE_SKIP_WORKTREE
    handling with conflicted entries", 2021-03-20)
[10] See commit ba359fd507 ("stash: fix stash application in
     sparse-checkouts", 2020-12-01)

=== SKIP_WORKTREE expectations in Git ===

A couple quotes:

 * From [11] (before the "sparse-checkout" command existed):

   If it needs too many special cases, hacks, and conditionals, then it
   is not worth the complexity---if it is easier to write a correct code
   by allowing Git to populate working tree files, it is perfectly fine
   to do so.

   In a sense, the sparse checkout "feature" itself is a hack by itself,
   and that is why I think this part should be "best effort" as well.

 * From the git-sparse-checkout manual (still present today):

   THIS COMMAND IS EXPERIMENTAL. ITS BEHAVIOR, AND THE BEHAVIOR OF OTHER
   COMMANDS IN THE PRESENCE OF SPARSE-CHECKOUTS, WILL LIKELY CHANGE IN
   THE FUTURE.

[11] https://lore.kernel.org/git/xmqqbmb1a7ga.fsf@gitster-ct.c.googlers.com/

=== Suggested solution ===

SKIP_WORKTREE was written to allow sparse-checkouts, in particular, as
the name of the option implies, to allow the file to NOT be in the
worktree but consider it to be unchanged rather than deleted.

The suggests a simple solution: present-despite-SKIP_WORKTREE files
should not exist, for those using sparse-checkouts.

Enforce this at index loading time by checking if core.sparseCheckout is
true; if so, check files in the index with the SKIP_WORKTREE bit set to
verify that they are absent from the working tree.  If they are present,
unset the bit (in memory, though any commands that write to the index
will record the update).

Users can, of course, can get the SKIP_WORKTREE bit back such as by
running `git sparse-checkout reapply` (if they have ensured the file is
unmodified and doesn't match the specified sparsity patterns).

=== Pros/Cons of suggested solution ===

Pros:

  * Solves the user visible problems reported above, which I've been
    complaining about for nearly a year but couldn't find a solution to.
  * Helps prevent slow performance degradation with a sparse-index.
  * Much easier behavior in sparse-checkouts for users to reason about
  * Very simple, ~30 lines of code.
  * Significantly simplifies some ugly testcases, and obviates the need
    to test an entire class of potential issues.
  * Reduces code complexity, reasoning, and maintenance.  Avoids
    disagreements about weird corner cases[12].
  * It has been reported that some users might be (ab)using
    SKIP_WORKTREE as a let-me-modify-but-keep-the-file-in-the-worktree
    mechanism[13, and a few other similar references].  These users know
    of multiple caveats and shortcomings in doing so; perhaps not
    surprising given the "SKIP_WORKTREE expecations" section above.
    However, these users use `git update-index --skip-worktree`, and not
    `git sparse-checkout` or core.sparseCheckout=true.  As such, these
    users would be unaffected by this change and can continue abusing
    the system as before.

[12] https://lore.kernel.org/git/CABPp-BH9tju7WVm=QZDOvaMDdZbpNXrVWQdN-jmfN8wC6YVhmw@mail.gmail.com/
[13] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/13630849/git-difference-between-assume-unchanged-and-skip-worktree

Cons:

  * When core.sparseCheckout is enabled, this adds a performance cost to
    reading the index.  I'll defer discussion of this cost to a subsequent
    patch, since I have some optimizations to add.

=== Notes on testcase modifications ===

The good:
  * t1011: Compare to two cases above it ('read-tree will not throw away
    dirty changes, non-sparse'); since the file is present, it should
    match the non-sparse case now
  * t1092: sparse-index &amp; sparse-checkout now match full-worktree
    behavior in more cases!  Yaay for consistency!
  * t6428, t7012: look at how much simpler the tests become!  Merge and
    stash can just fail early telling the user there's a file in the
    way, instead of not noticing until it's about to write a file and
    then have to implement sudden crash avoidance.  Hurray for sanity!
  * t7817: sparse behavior better matches full tree behavior.  Hurray
    for sanity!

The confusing:
  * t3705: These changes were ONLY needed on Windows, but they don't
    hurt other platforms.  Let's discuss each individually:

    * core.sparseCheckout should be false by default.  Nothing in this
      testcase toggles that until many, many tests later.  However,
      early tests (#5 in particular) were testing `update-index
      --skip-worktree` behavior in a non-sparse-checkout, but the
      Windows tests in CI were behaving as if core.sparseCheckout=true
      had been specified somewhere.  I do not have access to a Windows
      machine.  But I just manually did what should have been a no-op
      and turned the config off.  And it fixed the test.
    * I have no idea why the leftover .gitattributes file from this
      test was causing failures for test #18 on Windows, but only with
      these changes of mine.  Test #18 was checking for empty stderr,
      and specifically wanted to know that some error completely
      unrelated to file endings did not appear.  The leftover
      .gitattributes file thus caused some spurious stderr unrelated to
      the thing being checked.  Since other tests did not intend to
      test normalization, just proactively remove the .gitattributes
      file.  I'm certain this is cleaner and better, I'm just unsure
      why/how this didn't trigger problems before.

Signed-off-by: Elijah Newren &lt;newren@gmail.com&gt;
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano &lt;gitster@pobox.com&gt;
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
<title>sparse-index: add ensure_correct_sparsity function</title>
<updated>2021-11-25T00:32:38Z</updated>
<author>
<name>Victoria Dye</name>
<email>vdye@github.com</email>
</author>
<published>2021-11-23T00:20:32Z</published>
<link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='https://git.shady.money/git/commit/?id=b93fea08d24b0ceb498445cc80c91e26a6bff29b'/>
<id>urn:sha1:b93fea08d24b0ceb498445cc80c91e26a6bff29b</id>
<content type='text'>
The `ensure_correct_sparsity` function is intended to provide a means of
aligning the in-core index with the sparsity required by the repository
settings and other properties of the index. The function first checks
whether a sparse index is allowed (per repository &amp; sparse checkout pattern
settings). If the sparse index may be used, the index is converted to
sparse; otherwise, it is explicitly expanded with `ensure_full_index`.

Helped-by: Junio C Hamano &lt;gitster@pobox.com&gt;
Signed-off-by: Victoria Dye &lt;vdye@github.com&gt;
Reviewed-by: Elijah Newren &lt;newren@gmail.com&gt;
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano &lt;gitster@pobox.com&gt;
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
<title>sparse-index: avoid unnecessary cache tree clearing</title>
<updated>2021-11-25T00:32:38Z</updated>
<author>
<name>Victoria Dye</name>
<email>vdye@github.com</email>
</author>
<published>2021-11-23T00:20:31Z</published>
<link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='https://git.shady.money/git/commit/?id=13f69f30826001d6a98a36854d0c92a61d0dfcb8'/>
<id>urn:sha1:13f69f30826001d6a98a36854d0c92a61d0dfcb8</id>
<content type='text'>
When converting a full index to sparse, clear and recreate the cache tree
only if the cache tree is not fully valid. The convert_to_sparse operation
should exit silently if a cache tree update cannot be successfully completed
(e.g., due to a conflicted entry state). However, because this failure
scenario only occurs when at least a portion of the cache tree is invalid,
we can save ourselves the cost of clearing and recreating the cache tree by
skipping the check when the cache tree is fully valid.

Helped-by: Derrick Stolee &lt;dstolee@microsoft.com&gt;
Co-authored-by: Junio C Hamano &lt;gitster@pobox.com&gt;
Signed-off-by: Victoria Dye &lt;vdye@github.com&gt;
Reviewed-by: Elijah Newren &lt;newren@gmail.com&gt;
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano &lt;gitster@pobox.com&gt;
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
<title>Merge branch 'ds/sparse-index-ignored-files'</title>
<updated>2021-09-20T22:20:44Z</updated>
<author>
<name>Junio C Hamano</name>
<email>gitster@pobox.com</email>
</author>
<published>2021-09-20T22:20:44Z</published>
<link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='https://git.shady.money/git/commit/?id=dc89c34d9e9237293d0ed73adc454fedfc620f74'/>
<id>urn:sha1:dc89c34d9e9237293d0ed73adc454fedfc620f74</id>
<content type='text'>
In cone mode, the sparse-index code path learned to remove ignored
files (like build artifacts) outside the sparse cone, allowing the
entire directory outside the sparse cone to be removed, which is
especially useful when the sparse patterns change.

* ds/sparse-index-ignored-files:
  sparse-checkout: clear tracked sparse dirs
  sparse-index: add SPARSE_INDEX_MEMORY_ONLY flag
  attr: be careful about sparse directories
  sparse-checkout: create helper methods
  sparse-index: use WRITE_TREE_MISSING_OK
  sparse-index: silently return when cache tree fails
  unpack-trees: fix nested sparse-dir search
  sparse-index: silently return when not using cone-mode patterns
  t7519: rewrite sparse index test
</content>
</entry>
</feed>
