From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Tue, 05 Jan 2010 05:31:02 GMT
Subject: Re: "git add -i" with path gives "Argument list too long"
Message-ID: <7vzl4t6ru1.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>
In-Reply-To: <20100105041438.GB12574@coredump.intra.peff.net>

Jeff King <peff@peff.net> writes:

> I seem to recall Junio noting in the past the inconsistencies in git
> about what is a path and what is a pathspec. Is this one of those
> inconsistencies, and would it be a positive thing to fix it?

We actually never take paths and everything we take is pathspec.  One
longstanding gripe I had around this area is there are two kinds of
pathspecs.  "diff-tree" family of pathspecs only match "leading
directories" while "dir.c" and "builtin-grep.c" pathspecs allow both
"leading directories" and "glob" pathspecs.  Teaching "diff-tree" family
to also grok globs would be a very nice thing to do, and the listing of
paths with ls-files in the sample patch you are removing is indeed a
workaround for this issue.