Re: Change behavior of git add --patch on newly added file?

Emily Shaffer <emilyshaffer@google.com> writes:

Probably.  

I originally wrote "git add -i" with the intention that the interactive mode is _the_ primary interface to the machinery, so the expected way to work with a new file was "git add -i", tell the command to add that <newly-added-file>, and do the "patch" thing using the interactive subcommand to do so within the "git add -i" session.

Later people liked (only) the patch part, and "git add -p" (and various "--patch" options that invoke "add -p" internally from other commands like "checkout", "reset" were added) was born. I think nobody thought things through when they did so.

If I were designing "git add -p" from scratch and explicitly asked not to do the other parts of the "--interactive" feature, I would imagine "add -N && add -p" combination is what I would make it mimic.

Patches welcome, but you may want to check with Dscho as there is an effort going on to reimplement the entire "add -i" machinery in C.

Thanks.