Re: [PATCH] git-archive: document CWD effect

From: Junio C Hamano <junkio@cox.net>
Date: Apr 10, 2007, 21:49 UTC
Message-ID: <7v8xczvr13.fsf@assigned-by-dhcp.cox.net>
In-Reply-To: <461B9E22.5020102@lsrfire.ath.cx>

René Scharfe <rene.scharfe@lsrfire.ath.cx> writes:

> But just because there is currently no way (that I know of) to change
> the working directory on the remote end that doesn't mean the command
> needs to ignore the working directory when operating locally, where it
> can be changed easily.

I do not think it has much to do with "working directory". The remote one would most often be bare, and especially the public ones are so. I think the issue is if I ask a tarball of this commit without giving any specific parameters, what should happen.

And I think most people find it natural if you give them the whole tree no matter where they start from.

You could:

        $ git archive HEAD -- t/howto

to have a narrowed tarball, and even if you make:

	$ cd t/howto
	$ git archive HEAD

to produce the whole tree, the user can still do:

	$ cd t/howto
        $ git archive HEAD -- .

to get the narrowed tree if the command understands the prefix it receives from git_setup_directory().

So while I understand when you say this is "another input method", letting people in a deep directory to abbreviate their cwd with "." would equally a good input method, and probably better than the current implementation, which leaves people without a single way to say "I want the whole tree" without cd'ing up.