Re: [PATCH] git-archive: document CWD effect

René Scharfe [off-list ref] writes:

Nick Williams schrieb:

quoted

git-archive only archives the current working dir (and sub dirs) even
when no paths are specified. For example, if I do

git archive --format=tar --prefix=git-1.5.0.2/ HEAD > ~/test/test.tar

from with in the Documentation dir, then I only get part of the tree.

Is this the intended behavior?

The reason I ask is that from my (mis)reading of the man page I expect
to get all of the tree unless paths are specified.

Sorry about the late reply.  Would these two additional manpage lines
clear things up for you?

While the updated description reflects what the command does
more accurately, I am not sure if it is a desired behaviour.
For one thing, --format=tar (by the way, maybe we would want to
make this the default when none is specified?) adds the comment
that is readable by get-tar-commit-id that claims the tarball
contains the named commit, giving a false impression that it is
the whole thing.  Since people who _really_ want a subtree can
just say "git archive --format=tar HEAD:Documentation", I
suspect we may be better off not doing "current directory only"
by default.  This changes the behaviour, but (1) it affects only
people who run from a subdirectory, (2) it is counterintuitive
that your location in the working tree matters when you say "I
want a tarball of that commit", and (3) it is an undocumented
behaviour anyway.

So my suggestions are:

 (1) When no pathspec is given, archive the whole tree, even
     when you are in a subdirectory.

 (2) When a pathspec is given, produce a partial tarball limited
     to the named spec like we do now, but do not say it is a
     tarball of the named commit (i.e. get-tar-commit-id would
     say empty).

An alternative to (2) would be to say "$commit:Documentation"
instead, but that has a little issue of what to do when more
than one pathspecs are given.