Re: What's cooking in git.git (Feb 2010, #05; Sun, 21)

On Mon, Feb 22, 2010 at 12:21:33PM -0800, Junio C Hamano wrote:

quoted

True, though most of those pathspecs for tracked files are when viewing
diffs. It seems more inconsistent here because "git add foo" complains
but "git add -u foo" does not. So I think this one is definitely worth
fixing.

One problem is that it would be adding a new inconsistency.

"git diff" does not complain but "git add -u" will complain if we make
this change, but "add -u" is about updating the path that "git diff"
reports as different.

I see. Personally I don't mind that inconsistency as much, as it is
between two commands, rather than between flags within one command. But
that is perhaps a subjective evaluation.

But:

Making "add -u" complain before fixing "diff-files" will have another
issue.  It will expose a bigger inconsistency that you omitted from my
message ;-) The pathspec "git add" without "-u" takes are processed by
pathspec match logic of "ls-files" family, but "git add -u" uses pathspec
match logic of "diff" family.  They have different semantics.

You can say "git add 'frotz/*.c'" but not "git add -u 'frotz/*.c'"; that
also needs to be fixed.

That is a more worrisome inconsistency to me (and now I get what you
were saying in your earlier message).

Making "add -u" alone complain using a separate throw-away logic that we
are sure we will have to discard when we make things consistent throughout
the system did not sound very attractive to me.  And that is why I was
unhappy about the solution.

OK, now I am unhappy about it, too, and I agree it should be addressed
in the long term. But that is a large-ish project that will not happen
immediately. What is the best thing in the meantime?

I am still tempted by the patch. Even though it trades one inconsistency
for another, I find a false sense of success from "git-add" to be one of
the more ugly errors (and even though "git add -u 'frotz/*.c'" would
still not work with it, at least you would be informed of such).

-Peff