Re: [PATCH v3 6/8] attr: be careful about sparse directories

>
> On 8/19/2021 4:53 PM, Elijah Newren wrote:
> > On Tue, Aug 17, 2021 at 6:23 AM Derrick Stolee via GitGitGadget
> > <gitgitgadget@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> +       /*
> >> +        * In the case of cone-mode sparse-checkout, getting the
> >> +        * .gitattributes file from a directory is meaningless: all
> >> +        * contained paths will be sparse if the .gitattributes is also
> >> +        * sparse. In the case of a sparse index, it is critical that we
> >> +        * don't go looking for one as it will expand the index.
> >> +        */
> >
> > "all contained paths will be sparse if the .gitattributes is also sparse"?
> >
> > Do you mean something more like "the .gitattributes only applies for
> > files under the given directory, and if the directory is sparse, then
> > neither the .gitattributes file or any other file under that directory
> > will be present" ?
>
> Yes, you understand correctly and explain it better. Thanks.
>
> > Also, out of curiosity, I was suggesting in the past we do something
> > like this for .gitignore files, for the same reason.  Do we have such
> > logic in place, or is that another area of the code that hasn't been
> > handled yet?
>
> I don't believe this has been handled. It definitely is less obvious
> what to do there, because the point of .gitignore is to skip files that
> exist in the working tree even if Git didn't put them there. Meanwhile,
> .gitattributes is about how Git writes tracked files, but Git doesn't
> write sparse tracked files.