Re: What's cooking in git.git (Nov 2009, #04; Tue, 17)

>  * nd/sparse (2009-08-20) 19 commits.
>   - sparse checkout: inhibit empty worktree
>   - Add tests for sparse checkout
>   - read-tree: add --no-sparse-checkout to disable sparse checkout support
>   - unpack-trees(): ignore worktree check outside checkout area
>   - unpack_trees(): apply $GIT_DIR/info/sparse-checkout to the final index
>   - unpack-trees(): "enable" sparse checkout and load $GIT_DIR/info/sparse-checkout
>   - unpack-trees.c: generalize verify_* functions
>   - unpack-trees(): add CE_WT_REMOVE to remove on worktree alone
>   - Introduce "sparse checkout"
>   - dir.c: export excluded_1() and add_excludes_from_file_1()
>   - excluded_1(): support exclude files in index
>   - unpack-trees(): carry skip-worktree bit over in merged_entry()
>   - Read .gitignore from index if it is skip-worktree
>   - Avoid writing to buffer in add_excludes_from_file_1()
>   - Teach Git to respect skip-worktree bit (writing part)
>   - Teach Git to respect skip-worktree bit (reading part)
>   - Introduce "skip-worktree" bit in index, teach Git to get/set this bit
>   - Add test-index-version
>   - update-index: refactor mark_valid() in preparation for new options
>
>  The latest update I didn't look at very closely but I had an impression
>  that it was touching very generic codepath that would affect non sparse
>  cases, iow the patch looked very scary (the entire series already is).