Re: git ls-files -X option is relative to repo root
- From
Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
- Date
- Feb 13, 2015, 22:02 UTC
- Message-ID
- <xmqqy4o1lbbx.fsf@gitster.dls.corp.google.com>
- In-Reply-To
- <CAG4vEKP760_sq1fsJD_1jjz0_G+T8NosSXDqx0bvQy4tPVz5JQ@mail.gmail.com>
Daniel Finnie <dan@danfinnie.com> writes:
> Do you have any comments on why the path in --exclude-from=<path> is > relative to the project root?
Not really.
Because ls-files was designed to be used by Porcelain scripts, and because the first thing Porcelain scripts are expected to do is to learn the prefix and then cd to the root level of the working tree before doing anything else, <path> that is relative to the root level of the working tree ends up to be not so unnatural thing to be used with --exclude-from=<path> (e.g. ".git/info/exclude").
If it were relative to whatever subdirectory the invoker of the Porcelain script happened to be, Porcelain would have to do a lot more (e.g. in "cd x/y && myPorcelain ../../.git/info/exclude", the myPorcelain script would first have to learn the prefix is x/y, go up two levels, and then strip two ../ from ../../.git/info/exclude to turn it into .git/info/exclude when it runs ls-files).
So that is a convenience explanation in retrospect, but "Why" is often a futile question to ask when talking about evolution, in which whatever works gets picked.