Re: [PATCH v3] sparse-checkout: improve OS ls compatibility

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Dec 20, 2019, 18:21 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqftheamea.fsf@gitster-ct.c.googlers.com>
In-Reply-To: <CAPig+cS6XPc9KZo3ytEHLFjMxEFqCk5OJMUjZyFBP0cA95u9Lw@mail.gmail.com>

Eric Sunshine <sunshine@sunshineco.com> writes:

Show 8 quoted lines

> anomalous behavior is still present. It would be helpful, therefore,
> to mention such an implementation by name:
>
>     ...some 'ls' implementations, such as on FreeBSD, include...
>
> (One can, of course, always argue that the commit message can be
> consulted to learn about a particular 'ls' implementation, but then
> why have an in-code comment at all?)

"This is similar to ls" is not all that important, especially if we then need to say how different from "ls" ours is. The log message that describes why we needed to move away from "ls" is a good place to say what aspect of "ls" was unsuitable.

If we _were_ to add an in-code comment, we may want to say something like

	# Do not replace this with "cd "$1" && ls", as FreeBSD "ls"
	# enables "-A" when run by root without being told, and ends
	# up including ".git" etc. in its output.

to warn future developers against improving and/or cleaning up.

Not that we encourage running our tests as root, though. I am slightly worried that the above phrasing might be taken as such.