Signed-off-by: Elijah Newren <redacted>
---
 Documentation/git-sparse-checkout.txt | 10 ++++++++++
 builtin/sparse-checkout.c             | 10 +++++++++-
 2 files changed, 19 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/Documentation/git-sparse-checkout.txt b/Documentation/git-sparse-checkout.txt
index c0342e53938..27f4392489f 100644
--- a/Documentation/git-sparse-checkout.txt
+++ b/Documentation/git-sparse-checkout.txt

@@ -70,6 +70,16 @@ C-style quoted strings.
 	`core.sparseCheckoutCone` is enabled, the given patterns are interpreted
 	as directory names as in the 'set' subcommand.
 
+'update'::
+	Update the sparseness of paths in the working tree based on the
+	existing patterns.  Commands like merge or rebase can materialize
+	paths to do their work (e.g. in order to show you a conflict), and
+	other sparse-checkout commands might fail to sparsify an individual
+	file (e.g. because it has unstaged changes or conflicts).  In such
+	cases, it can make sense to run `git sparse-checkout update` later
+	after cleaning up affected paths (e.g. resolving conflicts, undoing
+	or committing changes, etc.).
+
 'disable'::
 	Disable the `core.sparseCheckout` config setting, and restore the
 	working directory to include all files. Leaves the sparse-checkout

diff --git a/builtin/sparse-checkout.c b/builtin/sparse-checkout.c
index 5d3ec2e6be9..2ae21011dfd 100644
--- a/builtin/sparse-checkout.c
+++ b/builtin/sparse-checkout.c

@@ -18,7 +18,7 @@
 static const char *empty_base = "";
 
 static char const * const builtin_sparse_checkout_usage[] = {
-	N_("git sparse-checkout (init|list|set|add|disable) <options>"),
+	N_("git sparse-checkout (init|list|set|add|update|disable) <options>"),
 	NULL
 };
 

@@ -552,6 +552,12 @@ static int sparse_checkout_set(int argc, const char **argv, const char *prefix,
 	return modify_pattern_list(argc, argv, m);
 }
 
+static int sparse_checkout_update(int argc, const char **argv)
+{
+	repo_read_index(the_repository);
+	return update_working_directory(NULL);
+}
+

 static int sparse_checkout_disable(int argc, const char **argv)
 {
 	struct pattern_list pl;

@@ -601,6 +607,8 @@ int cmd_sparse_checkout(int argc, const char **argv, const char *prefix)
 			return sparse_checkout_set(argc, argv, prefix, REPLACE);
 		if (!strcmp(argv[0], "add"))
 			return sparse_checkout_set(argc, argv, prefix, ADD);
+		if (!strcmp(argv[0], "update"))
+			return sparse_checkout_update(argc, argv);
 		if (!strcmp(argv[0], "disable"))
 			return sparse_checkout_disable(argc, argv);
 	}