Re: `git describe --dirty` doesn't consider untracked files to be dirty

From: Aaron Schrab <aaron@schrab.com>
Date: Sep 8, 2020, 23:16 UTC
Message-ID: <20200908231652.GC1014@pug.qqx.org>
In-Reply-To: <xmqqh7s8z0qw.fsf@gitster.c.googlers.com>

At 09:33 -0700 08 Sep 2020, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:

Show 14 quoted lines

>Ash Holland <ash@sorrel.sh> writes:
>
>> There seems to be a discrepancy between how `git describe --dirty` is
>> documented and how it actually behaves. The documentation describes
>> the --dirty flag like this:
>>
>>> If the working tree has local modification "-dirty" is appended to it.
>
>Not limited to what "describe" does, whenever we mention "local
>modification", we only mean modification to tracked contents,
>because by definition we do not detect or track "modifications" to
>anything that is not tracked.  Untracked paths may have been
>modified multiple times, but since they are not even added, we do
>not notice nor care.

It's perhaps worth noting that submodules are already considered dirty when untracked files are added:

$ git diff vim/bundle/fugitive

$ echo foo >vim/bundle/fugitive/foo

$ git diff vim/bundle/fugitive

diff --git i/vim/bundle/fugitive w/vim/bundle/fugitive
--- i/vim/bundle/fugitive
+++ w/vim/bundle/fugitive
@@ -1 +1 @@
-Subproject commit caf3b1d5696e8d39a905e48f1e89d8c0c565168c
+Subproject commit caf3b1d5696e8d39a905e48f1e89d8c0c565168c-dirty