Re: [RFC PATCH 00/12] Sparse checkout

>  Second, I think you can simply special case .git* files (.gitignore,
>  .gitattributes, .gitmodules), and always check them out for all
>  intermediate directories (unless configured otherwise, of course).
>  So for example if you have the following directory structure:
>
>   A/.gitignore
>   A/a
>   A/B1/.gitignore
>   A/B1/b
>   A/B2/.gitignore
>   A/B2/c
>
>  and you are checking out only subdirectory 'B1' (and all files in it;
>  if subdirectories are checked out recursively it depends on
>  configuration), and if for example there is .gitignore in every
>  directory, then checked out tree would look like this:
>
>   A/.gitignore
>   A/B1/.gitignore
>   A/B1/b
>
>  The ability to do this is one of advantages of 'sparse' checkout over
>  'subtree' checkout.