Re: checkout extra files

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Sep 4, 2012, 20:44 UTC
Message-ID: <7vobll8qn2.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>
In-Reply-To: <CAB9Jk9DVcG14mS3HaGE4JEY0AwExvjqrnQqzTEZxHLjEQ6UObg@mail.gmail.com>

Angelo Borsotti <angelo.borsotti@gmail.com> writes:

Show 5 quoted lines

> The issue here is that the paths must denote filenames that are
> present in the index
> or tree-ish, so, wildcards are misleading since they would instead be
> interpreted
> with respect to the working directory.

When you are talking to a shell (and you almost never directly talk to Git), wildcards are always interpreted with respect to the working directory by the shell. And that is not specific to Git.

Show 10 quoted lines

> A possible way to make this clear is to warn the user to quote paths
> that contain
> wildcards. Something like, e.g.:
>
>   "Note that <paths> that contain wildcards must be quoted in order to
> denote files that
>    belong to the index or <tree-ish>. Otherwise, they are interpreted
> by the shell with
>    respect to the current directory, with a result that may depend on
> the shell."

Perhaps, if you drop ", with a result..." from that sentence.

Even though that description is a bit too much on the side of "shell primer" than "git documentation" for my taste, I could see it may help some people, so I wouldn't reject such a phrasing out of hand.

Let's see what others feel.