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Re: [PATCH] read-cache: avoid sparse-index expansion for unborn HEAD

From
Sahitya Chandra <sahityajb@gmail.com>
Date
Aug 7, 2026, 08:05 UTC
Message-ID
<CAP=WS+sp74WQ=xndQ+2a6W-qP3Zz8=bVnEymgVpS+gwMv1Dh7g@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To
<CABPp-BGYuQA_ngR3xS-_Mndzf_ubkn7rSc25CJG=UbLCVGdnyg@mail.gmail.com>
On Fri, Aug 7, 2026 at 12:17 PM Elijah Newren <newren@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> This explains what, but not why. It feels like a pedagogical exercise
> with no actual utility.

You are right, I found this through the TODO comment and do not have a concrete user bug report or use case driving it.

> Why would someone with an unborn HEAD be using a sparse index? [...]

I do not have a good answer to that. My thinking was simply that removing the special-case fallback still has some value: it deletes a long-standing TODO, unifies the unborn-branch path with the normal diff path, and removes an ensure_full_index() call that future readers would need to reason about.

> This seems to presume a single dirty file, otherwise wouldn't the
> printing look pretty odd?

I agree that "dirty=%s" looks wrong when multiple paths are present. I can fix that in v2.

Thanks for the review.
Previous: Elijah NewrenNext: Elijah Newren
Message 4 of 6 in “read-cache: avoid sparse-index expansion for unborn HEAD”
  1. read-cache: avoid sparse-index expansion for unborn HEADSahitya Chandra, Aug 2, 2026
  2. Sahitya ChandraAug 6, 2026
  3. Elijah NewrenAug 7, 2026
  4. Sahitya ChandraAug 7, 2026
  5. Elijah NewrenAug 7, 2026
  6. Sahitya ChandraSep 11, 2026

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