Re: what should "git clean -n -f [-d] [-x] <pattern>" do?

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Jan 23, 2024, 18:34 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqsf2nnbkj.fsf@gitster.g>
In-Reply-To: <87a5ow9jb4.fsf@osv.gnss.ru>

Sergey Organov <sorganov@gmail.com> writes:

> Then how does one figure what "git clean -f -f" will do without actually
> doing it?

I think whoever came up with the bright idea of forcing twice somehow does a totally different thing from forcing once should be shot, twice ;-) It does not mesh well with the idea behind the clean.requireForce setting to make you explicitly choose either '-f' or '-n' to express your intent.

I wonder how feasible is it to deprecate that misfeature introduced with a0f4afbe (clean: require double -f options to nuke nested git repository and work tree, 2009-06-30) and migrate its users (which is marked as "This is rarely what the user wants") to a new option, say, --nested-repo-too so that the "dry-run" version of the invocations become

    git clean -n
    git clean -n --nested-repo-too

and you can substitute "-n" with "-f" to actually perform it?

Anybody care to come up with a sensible migration plan?

Thanks.