Re: [PATCH] ls-files: add an --exclude-links option

>
> On Wed, Jun 21, 2023 at 06:08:04AM +0000, Guido Martínez via GitGitGadget wrote:
>
> > From: =?UTF-8?q?Guido=20Mart=C3=ADnez?= <mtzguido@gmail.com>
> >
> > Add an option to exclude symlinks from the listed files. This is useful
> > in case we are listing the files in order to process the contents,
> > for instance to do some text replacement with `sed -i`. In that case,
> > there is no point in processing the links, and it could even be
> > counterproductive as some tools (like sed) will replace the link with a
> > fresh regular file.
> >
> > This option enables a straightforward implementation of a `git sed`:
> >
> >     #!/bin/bash
> >     git ls-files --exclude-links -z | xargs -0 -P $(nproc) -- sed -i -e "$@"
>
> This invocation would likewise have a problem with gitlink entries (for
> submodules). I think what you really want is not "exclude symlinks" but
> "show only regular files".

> There is no option for that, but you can do
> it by grepping modes from "-s", like:
>
>   git ls-files -s | grep '^100[67]' | ...
>
> You do unfortunately have to then pull the filename out of the rest of
> the line, and since we didn't use "-z", it will be quoted (and using
> "-z" makes it hard to use tools like grep and sed). A mild application
> of perl works, though:
>
>   git ls-files -s |
>   perl -0ne 'print if s/^100(644|755).*?\t//' |
>   xargs -0 ...

> So I dunno. That is not exactly pretty, but if you were hiding it in a
> "git sed" alias or script, it's not so bad.
>
> If we were to add an option to ls-files, it would make more sense to me
> to allow the user to include/exclude by mode or possibly naming the type
> (e.g., "f" for regular files, "l" for symbolic links, etc, which matches
> "find"). And then allow inclusion/exclusion similar to the way that
> git-diff's --diff-filter option works.