With this change, the following piped commands would not change the
working directory:

        git sparse-checkout list | git sparse-checkout set --stdin

The only time this would not work is if core.sparseCheckoutCone is
true, but the sparse-checkout file contains patterns that do not
match the expected pattern types for cone mode.

Signed-off-by: Derrick Stolee <redacted>
---
 Documentation/git-sparse-checkout.txt | 11 ++++++++++-
 builtin/sparse-checkout.c             | 21 +++++++++++++++++++++
 t/t1091-sparse-checkout-builtin.sh    | 11 +++++++++++
 3 files changed, 42 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/Documentation/git-sparse-checkout.txt b/Documentation/git-sparse-checkout.txt
index 9c3c66cc37..dcca9ee826 100644
--- a/Documentation/git-sparse-checkout.txt
+++ b/Documentation/git-sparse-checkout.txt

@@ -28,7 +28,7 @@ THE FUTURE.
 COMMANDS
 --------
 'list'::
-       Provide a list of the contents in the sparse-checkout file.
+       Describe the patterns in the sparse-checkout file.

 'init'::
        Enable the `core.sparseCheckout` setting. If the

@@ -150,6 +150,15 @@ expecting patterns of these types. Git will warn if the patterns do not match.
 If the patterns do match the expected format, then Git will use faster hash-
 based algorithms to compute inclusion in the sparse-checkout.

+In the cone mode case, the `git sparse-checkout list` subcommand will list the
+folders that define the recursive patterns. For the example sparse-checkout file

+above, the output is as follows:
+
+--------------------------
+$ git sparse-checkout list
+A/B/C
+--------------------------
+
 If `core.ignoreCase=true`, then the pattern-matching algorithm will use a
 case-insensitive check. This corrects for case mismatched filenames in the
 'git sparse-checkout set' command to reflect the expected cone in the working

diff --git a/builtin/sparse-checkout.c b/builtin/sparse-checkout.c
index 5d62f7a66d..b3bed891cb 100644
--- a/builtin/sparse-checkout.c
+++ b/builtin/sparse-checkout.c

@@ -53,6 +53,8 @@ static int sparse_checkout_list(int argc, const char **argv)

        memset(&pl, 0, sizeof(pl));

+       pl.use_cone_patterns = core_sparse_checkout_cone;
+
        sparse_filename = get_sparse_checkout_filename();
        res = add_patterns_from_file_to_list(sparse_filename, "", 0, &pl, NULL);
        free(sparse_filename);

@@ -62,6 +64,25 @@ static int sparse_checkout_list(int argc, const char **argv)
                return 0;
        }

+       if (pl.use_cone_patterns) {
+               int i;
+               struct pattern_entry *pe;
+               struct hashmap_iter iter;
+               struct string_list sl = STRING_LIST_INIT_DUP;
+
+               hashmap_for_each_entry(&pl.recursive_hashmap, &iter, pe, ent) {
+                       /* pe->pattern starts with "/", skip it */
+                       string_list_insert(&sl, pe->pattern + 1);
+               }
+
+               string_list_sort(&sl);
+
+               for (i = 0; i < sl.nr; i++)
+                       printf("%s\n", sl.items[i].string);
+
+               return 0;
+       }
+
        write_patterns_to_file(stdout, &pl);
        clear_pattern_list(&pl);

diff --git a/t/t1091-sparse-checkout-builtin.sh b/t/t1091-sparse-checkout-builtin.sh
index 6f7e2d0c9e..37f6d8fa90 100755
--- a/t/t1091-sparse-checkout-builtin.sh
+++ b/t/t1091-sparse-checkout-builtin.sh

@@ -246,6 +246,17 @@ test_expect_success 'cone mode: init and set' '
        test_cmp expect dir
 '

+test_expect_success 'cone mode: list' '
+       cat >expect <<-EOF &&
+               folder1
+               folder2
+       EOF
+       git -C repo sparse-checkout set --stdin <expect &&
+       git -C repo sparse-checkout list >actual 2>err &&
+       test_must_be_empty err &&
+       test_cmp expect actual
+'
+
 test_expect_success 'cone mode: set with nested folders' '