Re: ls-files --exclude broken?

> On Wed, Sep 15, 2010 at 7:12 PM, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:
>>> Am I missing something really obvious here?
>>>
>>> kore:~/Repos/git (master)$ git ls-files | wc -l
>>>     2009
>>
>> You asked it to show the cached paths (default).  Your project currently
>> tracks 2009 paths in the index.
>
> Correct.
>
>>> kore:~/Repos/git (master)$ git ls-files -x \* | wc -l
>>>     2009
>>
>> You told that '*' is the exclude pattern for carrying out some operation,
>> but you didn't tell what operation you want.  You are shown the cached
>> paths (default).
>
> I want cached paths, minus the exclude pattern. Using -c -x \* gives
> the same result.
>
> There is no indication in the man page that -x doesn't apply to -c.
>
>>> kore:~/Repos/git (master)$ git ls-files -i -x \* | wc -l
>>>     2009
>>
>> You told that '*' is the exclude pattern, you want only paths that match
>> the exclude pattern, and chose to show files in the index (which again is
>> the default) by not saying -o.
>>
>> I've never found -i useful myself (actually I don't find many options the
>> command has very useful anymore), but the above is how I read the ls-files
>> manual page.
>
> I don't care about -i myself, and maybe I should have been clearer.
> AFAICT, [-c] -x is broken:
>
> $ git ls-files -c -x \* |wc -l
>    2009
>
>       -c, --cached
>           Show cached files in the output (default)
>
>       -x <pattern>, --exclude=<pattern>
>           Skips files matching pattern. Note that pattern is a shell
> wildcard pattern.
>
> Oh, geez, here it is lower down in the man page:
>
>  git ls-files can use a list of "exclude patterns" when traversing
> the directory tree and finding files to show when the flags --others
> or --ignored are specified. gitignore(5) specifies the format of
> exclude patterns.
>
> Bah, what use is that? Minimally ls-files shouldn't accept -x unless
> given either --ignored or --others if that's all it applies to. I
> guess this is my itch to scratch.