Re: [BUG] 'add -u' doesn't work from untracked subdir

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Sep 5, 2009, 17:28 UTC
Message-ID: <7veiql1etz.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>
In-Reply-To: <20090905084641.GA24865@darc.dnsalias.org>

Clemens Buchacher <drizzd@aon.at> writes:

Show 7 quoted lines

> "git add -u ." is friendly enough. Just like "git commit ." versus "git
> commit -a", which is exactly the same concept and should therefore have the
> same behavior.
>
> You are assuming that people are in a subdirectory because they want to
> limit the scope. But I am usually in a subdirectory for totally
> versioning-unrelated reasons.

Limit the scope of what you see in "ls" (no argument) output, shorten the paths you must type to non-git commands. They are the kind of "limit the scope" I meant, and they are totally versioning-unrelated. In other words, cwd-centric default helps the users (especially the new ones) by making git behave consistently with other commands.

So if anything, I personally think it would be much less surprising if all git commands worked relative to the cwd (not whole tree root) when run without path argument, at least from the newbie's point of view [*1*].

But notice that the above is qualified with "personally". An alternative would be to declare that in 1.8.0, all commands run without path argument will work on the whole tree and you have to give an explicit '.' when you want to limit their effect to the cwd.

This may be slightly less intuitive to newbies than the "relative to cwd", but nevertheless that is the course I would suggest us taking, because of the following observations:

 (1) if the commands work on the whole tree when run without paths, it is
     easy to limit to the cwd with "git frotz ." when you want to.

 (2) if the commands work on the cwd when run without paths, you have to
     always be aware how deep you are, and say "git frotz ../../.." when
     you want to extend their effects to the whole tree.

The latter is much more irritating.

Please also see:

    Message-ID: <7vy6ot4x61.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org> ($gmane/127795)

think about the three questions there, and help us move the discussion forward.

The first part of the message has some comments related to your patch, by the way.

[Footnote]

*1* Except for the ones that cannot make any sense to limit their operation to a subdirectory you happen to be in (e.g. it would be insane if "git am" run to accept somebody's patch ignored paths outside your cwd).