Re: [RFD] minor frustration in 'git add' pathname completion

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Mar 24, 2016, 22:55 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqy4975vv7.fsf@gitster.mtv.corp.google.com>
In-Reply-To: <CAGZ79kYDWJDDJ+doy3NcZH_dqbbFE8U2UHZjnYYTo5R9GTsghQ@mail.gmail.com>

Stefan Beller <sbeller@google.com> writes:

Show 14 quoted lines

>> If I were to explicitly ignore that file, then even though I know
>> whats-cooking.txt is not ignored,
>>
>>    $ git add whats-coo<HT>
>>
>> would not offer anything.  I'd be left scratching my head, wondering
>> if I mistyped the early part of the filename (e.g. "wahts-coo<HT>"?).
>
> Well, git add cannot do anything with either of the files, so why would
> it offer to complete to one of them?
>
> In an ideal world it would tell you whats-cooking.txt doesn't need
> adding and whats-cooking.txt+ is ignored locally so excluded from
> being added.

Exactly my point that you omitted from your quoting ;-)

Because the completion cannot give such an explanation, the behaviour gives an unnecessary confusion to the user. If it offered whats-cooking.txt as a candidate, at least the behaviour would make sense to the user. "Doesn't need adding" is quite different from "must not be added". In other words, "git add A && git add A" does not hurt, but "git add A~" would because the latter would only makes you see unnecessary error message ("You need -f if you really mean it").