Re: [PATCH] diff: don't read index when --no-index is given

Am 09.12.2013 16:16, schrieb Jonathan Nieder:

Thomas Gummerer wrote:

quoted

git diff --no-index ... currently reads the index, during setup, when
calling gitmodules_config().  In the usual case this gives us some
performance drawbacks,

Makes sense.

Hmm, but this will disable the submodule specific ignore configuration
options defined in the .gitmodules file, no? (E.g. when diffing two
directories containing submodules)

quoted

                       but it's especially annoying if there is a broken
index file.

Is this really a normal case?  It makes sense that as a side-effect it
is easier to use "git diff --no-index" as a general-purpose tool while
investigating a broken repo, but I would have thought that quickly
learning a repo is broken is a good thing in any case.

But I agree that dying with "index file corrupt" is a bit strange when
calling diff with --no-index. Wouldn't adding a "gently" option (which
could then warn instead of dying) to gitmodules_config() be a better
solution here?