Unexpected "clean -Xd" behavior

Hi,

When a directory contains nothing but an ignored subdirectory, that subdirectory does not get removed by "git clean -Xdf".

For example, in a new directory:

# git init
Initialized empty Git repository in /tmp/foo/.git/
# echo a/ >.gitignore
# git add .gitignore
# git commit -m "Initial commit"
[master (root-commit) c3af24c] Initial commit
 1 files changed, 1 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
 create mode 100644 .gitignore
# mkdir -p foo/a
# touch foo/a/junk.o
# git status
# On branch master
nothing to commit (working directory clean)
# git clean -Xdn  # <--- DOES NOT MENTION foo/a
# touch foo/x.c
# git clean -Xdn  # <--- DITTO WITH UNTRACKED IN foo
# git add foo/x.c
# git clean -Xdn  # <--- WITH TRACKED IN foo, WILL REMOVE a/
Would remove foo/a/
#

Is this intentional? It's interfering with my using "git clean" to remove built objects, which happen to be in a dedicated temporary subdirectory.

Thanks,

--Pete Harlan
  pgit@pcharlan.com

(+cc: Duy, Shawn) Hi,

Pete Harlan wrote:

Sounds like a bug.  Duy, Shawn, any hints?

Thanks, Jonathan

2012/1/19 Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>:

-X is to remove ignored files _only_ (DIR_SHOW_IGNORED flag). And "foo" is not ignored according to .gitignore, so it cuts short there and never gets to "foo/a". -x works. May be intentional, may be not (we hit a corner case). I don't know. Commit message b991625 might help:

    dir.c: Omit non-excluded directories with dir->show_ignored

    This makes "git-ls-files --others --directory --ignored" behave
    as documented and consequently also fixes "git-clean -d -X".
    Previously, git-clean would remove non-excluded directories
    even when using the -X option.

Nguyen Thai Ngoc Duy wrote:

Makes sense.

I guess the internal logic is that "git clean -fdX" cleans up files that "git clean -fd" would miss, and this is not such a file ("git clean -fd" removes it). But as Pete mentioned, in this edge case the behavior renders "git clean -fdX" less effective than expected at its primary task as poor man's "make clean".

I'd be happy to see a patch that moves to a different set of semantics or an addition to t/t7300-clean.sh and BUGS section in Documentation/git-clean.txt explaining the current limitations, if someone wants to work on that.

Thanks, both. Jonathan

Thank you very much for looking at this.

2012/1/19 "Nguyen Thai Ngoc Duy" <pclouds@gmail.com>:

But the presence of a tracked file in foo makes it not cut short there, so the logic seems a bit off. (If we're interested in removing ignored files only, then the ignored files (not a tracked file) should trigger us looking into foo. I don't know Git internals but I'm guessing it's not quite that simple.)

It can (and does) leave foo behind (because it's not ignored), but it would conform better to the -X documentation if the ignored files were removed.

BTW the above commit doesn't affect the behavior in this example.

If a fix isn't desirable then as Jonathan said updating the documentation makes sense. (And those of us using it as a poor man's "make clean" can just fix our Makefiles instead...)

Thanks,

--Pete