Re: [PATCH v5 2/3] stash push: avoid printing errors

Thomas Gummerer <t.gummerer@gmail.com> writes:

That made me wonder if we can get rid of 'git clean' altogether by pretending that we saw a pathspec '.' that match everything when no pathspec is given---that way we only have to worry about a single codepath.

But I guess doing it this way can minimize potential damage. Those who do not use pathspec when running "git stash" won't be affected even if this change had some bugs ;-)

Thanks, I'll take the change as-is.

I however wonder if we restructure the code to

	if test $# = 0
	then
		# no pathspec
		if test -n "$untracked"
		then
			git clean --force --quiet -d $CLEAN_OPTION -- "$@"
		fi
		git reset --hard -q
	else
		test -z "$untracked" && UPDATE=-u || UPDATE=
		test "$untracked" = all && FORCE=--force || FORCE=
		git add $UPDATE $FORCE-- "$@"
		git diff-index -p --cached --binary HEAD -- "$@" |
		git apply --index -R
	fi

it becomes easier to understand what is going on.

That way, once we have a plumbing command to help the else clause of the above, i.e. "git checkout --index <tree-ish> -- <pathspec>" [*1*], then we can lose the if/then/else and rewrite the whole "we have created stash, so it's time to get rid of local modifications to the paths that match the pathspec" code to:

	if test "$untracked"
	then
		git clean --force --quiet -d $CLEAN_OPTION -- "$@"
	fi
	git checkout --index HEAD -- "$@"

[Footnote] cf. https://public-inbox.org/git/xmqq4loqplou.fsf@gitster.mtv.corp.google.com/

What we want in the case in the code in question when there is pathspec is "match the index entries and the working tree files to those that appear in a given tree for paths that match the given pathspec". This is close to "git checkout <tree-ish> -- <pathspec>" but not quite. Current "git checkout <tree-ish> -- <pathspec>" is an overlay operation in that paths that match <pathspec> but do not exist in <tree-ish> are *NOT* removed from the working tree. We obviously cannot change the behaviour of the command.

But we can add an option to ask for the new behaviour. In general, for an operation that affects the index and the working tree, we can have "--cached" mode that affects only the index without touching the working tree, and "--index" mode that affects both.

"git reset <tree-ish> -- <pathspec>", which is a UI mistake, is better spelled "git checkout --cached <tree-ish> -- <pathspec>". We take paths that match <pathspec> from <tree-ish> and stuff into the index, and remove entries from the index for paths that do not exist in <tree-ish>. And if we extend that to "--index" mode, that is exactly what we want to happen.