Re: Git 1.7.6: Sparse checkouts do not work with directory exclusions

On Tue, Sep 20, 2011 at 8:03 AM, Joshua Jensen
[off-list ref] wrote:

Sometime after Git 1.7.3.2, sparse checkouts stopped working for me.  My
sparse-checkout file looks something like:

*
!DirA/
!DirB/
DirC/

I have restored some lines of code that were removed in November 2010.  This
resolves the sparse checkout issue for me, but my guess is the solution is
not implemented properly.

Can anyone confirm the issue

Confirmed. It got me wonder why the negated pattern tests did not
catch this. Turns out this works:

/*
!DirA/
!DirB/
DirC

This is my theory why yours does not work: negated patterns !DirA and
!DirB excludes both directories, but git still descends in them
because you may have other patterns that re-include parts of
DirA/DirB, for example:

DirA/DirD
!DirA

When it's in DirA/DirB, "*" tells git to match everything (equivalent
"DirA/*" and "DirB/*"), so it matches all entries in DirA/DirB again,
essentially reverting "!DirA" and "!DirB" effects.

By using "/*" instead of "*", we tell git to just match entries at top
level, not all levels.

I think it makes sense, but it's a bit tricky.

and describe why those lines were removed?

Quotes from 9e08273: "The commit provided a workaround for matching
directories in index. But it is no longer needed."
-- 
Duy