Re: [PATCH v2 00/14] Sparse checkout

> >  How would that --narrow-match that is not stored anywhere on the
> >  filesystem but used only for filtering the output be any more useful than
> >  a grep that filters ls-files output in practice?
> 
> Well, it works exactly like 'grep' internally.
> 
> >  I would imagine it would be much more useful if .git/info/attributes can
> >  specify "checkout" attribute that is defined like this:
> >
> >         `checkout`
> >         ^^^^^^^^^^

> >  Then whenever a new path enters the index, you _could_ check with the
> >  attribute mechanism to set the CE_NOCHECKOUT flag.  Just like an already
> >  tracked path is not ignored even if it matches .gitignore pattern, a path
> >  without CE_NOCHECKOUT that is in the index is checked out even if it has
> >  checkout attribute Unset.
> >
> >  Hmm?
> 
> Well I think people would want to save no-checkout rules eventually.
> But I don't know how they want to use it. Will the saved rules be hard
> restriction, that no files can be checked out outside defined areas?
> Will it be to save a couple of keystrokes,   that is, instead of
> typing "--reset-sparse=blah" all the time, now just "--reset-sparse"
> and default rules will be applied? Your suggestion would be the third,
> applying on new files only.
> 
> Anyway I will try to extend attr.c a bit to take input from command
> line, then move "sparse patterns" over to use attr.c.