Re: Restore a single file in the index back to HEAD

From: Junio C Hamano <junkio@cox.net>
Date: Nov 1, 2006, 08:56 UTC
Message-ID: <7v4ptj7dfg.fsf@assigned-by-dhcp.cox.net>
In-Reply-To: <200611010839.35436.andyparkins@gmail.com>

Andy Parkins <andyparkins@gmail.com> writes:

Show 5 quoted lines

>> Then perhaps you can use "git checkout HEAD frotz", which is the
>> simplest?
>
> Doesn't that update the working directory as well as the
> index?

Yes, sorry, see my other mail.

> (imaginary) "git-update-index --reset" would not.

update-index is a plumbing that is about updating index (hence its name) and should not care what the HEAD is, and it does not even have to have _any_ head to do its work, so in that sense, "update-index --reset" is conceptually a layering violation.

Another possibility is read-tree, which is another plumbing that is about updating index from an existing tree (or three). It does not take paths limiter, so conceptually that is not too bad. We _could_ do so if we really wanted to.

But these two commands are meant to be used as building blocks, so if there are more suitable UI commands at the Porcelain layer to implement what we want to do without introducing more special cases to these plumbing commands, I would rather not touch them.