Re: checkout extra files

Angelo Borsotti [off-list ref] writes:

The issue here is that the paths must denote filenames that are
present in the index
or tree-ish, so, wildcards are misleading since they would instead be
interpreted
with respect to the working directory.

When you are talking to a shell (and you almost never directly talk
to Git), wildcards are always interpreted with respect to the
working directory by the shell.  And that is not specific to Git.

A possible way to make this clear is to warn the user to quote paths
that contain
wildcards. Something like, e.g.:

  "Note that <paths> that contain wildcards must be quoted in order to
denote files that
   belong to the index or <tree-ish>. Otherwise, they are interpreted
by the shell with
   respect to the current directory, with a result that may depend on
the shell."

Perhaps, if you drop ", with a result..." from that sentence.

Even though that description is a bit too much on the side of "shell
primer" than "git documentation" for my taste, I could see it may
help some people, so I wouldn't reject such a phrasing out of hand.

Let's see what others feel.