Re: [BUG]: Non-matching exclude pathspec causes an error in empty repository when the flag "--update" is present

From: Phillip Wood <phillip.wood123@gmail.com>
Date: Jun 2, 2025, 10:07 UTC
Message-ID: <e790367c-6777-4b4b-97f1-3b3a2cbdb177@gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <CAPM0=yCcOAGsUE8tX-o8ioihr+oWrORD6Tz=WH1OnmhpO+uqrA@mail.gmail.com>

Hi Piotr

On 27/05/2025 09:14, Piotr Siupa wrote:

> I found a regression in version 2.45.0. (It's still present in the
> current next - 2.49.0.1266.g31b7d2e469; earlier versions work fine.)

So it 2.44.0 there is no error message?

Show 15 quoted lines

> When you run "git add --update" with an exclude pathspec on an empty
> repository, the command fails, showing an error about not being able
> to find the specified files.
> This happens only if the repository contains no files. Adding any
> files (even with "git add -N") or making a non-empty commit fixes the
> issue, regardless of whether the added files match the exclude
> pathspec or not.
> 
> Way to reproduce:
> git init
> git add --update -- ':(exclude)foo'
> 
> This results in:
> error: pathspec ':(exclude)foo' did not match any file(s) known to git
> error: pathspec '.' did not match any file(s) known to git

I agree this is inconsistent with what happens if there are tracked files but I wonder if it is actually better to print an error message when an exclude pattern excludes all the files. We do print an error for

git add -u does-not-exist

because it does not match any file but not with

git add -u ':(exclude)*'

or

git add -u builtin ':(exclude)*.[ch]'

which will never add any files (the builtin directory only contains '.c' and '.h' files). So I think maybe the bug is that we don't print an error when there are tracked files and an exclude pattern matches everything

Best Wishes

Phillip