Re: Why does git diff-index show intent-to-add file as "Added"?

Pratyush Yadav <me@yadavpratyush.com> writes:

Yes, it says "when comparing the index and the working tree, working tree side has it, and the index side does not, so it is an addition".

Of course, if it is truly a new file that the index does not even know about, we'd stay silent, but a path that are marked with i-t-a bit is what the user told us to keey an eye on, so that is what you would get.

If this is "diff-index HEAD", then I think it is expected. "when comparing the HEAD and the working tree, working tree side has it, and the tree side does not, so it is an addition." Exactly the same story as "diff-files".

What should happen in "diff-index --cached HEAD", I offhand do not know. "diff-index --cached HEAD" is a request to compare two trees, i.e. the tree that _would_ be produced if you wrote the index out as a tree (i.e. "git write-tree") right now, and the tree of HEAD. So I think it may be sensible for the command to behave as if the i-t-a path does not even exist in the index when it is run with "--cached"; I may be missing some subtleties that require us to do something different, but that is what I would think.