# sparse checkout - weird behavior

2 messages from 2017-01-26 to 2017-01-26. Participants: Paul Hammant, Jeff King.
Thread: https://gitlist.dev/t/44977

## Paul Hammant, 2017-01-26 02:59

Subject: sparse checkout - weird behavior
Message-ID: <CA+298Uh=bfCJq3hmVdGUsinAgKFQd86em_J_8fwB9jQR5PZVgQ@mail.gmail.com>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/CA%2B298Uh%3DbfCJq3hmVdGUsinAgKFQd86em_J_8fwB9jQR5PZVgQ%40mail.gmail.com

```
Here's a simple reproducible bug - something unexpected in sparse-checkout mode:

  $ git clone git@github.com:jekyll/jekyll.git --no-checkout
  Cloning into 'jekyll'...
  remote: Counting objects: 41331, done.
  remote: Compressing objects: 100% (5/5), done.
  remote: Total 41331 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 41326
  Receiving objects: 100% (41331/41331), 11.91 MiB | 7.98 MiB/s, done.
  Resolving deltas: 100% (26530/26530), done.
  $ cd jekyll
  $ ls
  $ git config core.sparsecheckout true
  $ echo 'docs*' > .git/info/sparse-checkout
  $ git read-tree -mu HEAD
  $ ls
  docs rake

I didn't expect to see 'rake' amongst the results.

If I take out the asterisk on the echo line, only 'docs' is checked
out after the read-tree operation. Even if asterisk isn't allowed, I'd
not expect it to fail in that way. Sparse checkout documentation is a
little . .. . sparse it has to be said (sorry).

As it happens, I have some more complicated cases where
sparse-checkout is doing the wrong thing in the working copy - and
I'll work towards reproduction of that/those after this. Best to start
with a simple reproducible case in case there's a simple fix for more
that one similar bug.

Regards,

- Paul

```

## Jeff King, 2017-01-26 04:57

Subject: Re: sparse checkout - weird behavior
Message-ID: <20170126045701.eouw5kzyq5bevc5c@sigill.intra.peff.net>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/20170126045701.eouw5kzyq5bevc5c%40sigill.intra.peff.net
In-Reply-To: <CA+298Uh=bfCJq3hmVdGUsinAgKFQd86em_J_8fwB9jQR5PZVgQ@mail.gmail.com>

```
On Wed, Jan 25, 2017 at 09:59:38PM -0500, Paul Hammant wrote:

> Here's a simple reproducible bug - something unexpected in sparse-checkout mode:
> 
>   $ git clone git@github.com:jekyll/jekyll.git --no-checkout
>   Cloning into 'jekyll'...
>   remote: Counting objects: 41331, done.
>   remote: Compressing objects: 100% (5/5), done.
>   remote: Total 41331 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 41326
>   Receiving objects: 100% (41331/41331), 11.91 MiB | 7.98 MiB/s, done.
>   Resolving deltas: 100% (26530/26530), done.
>   $ cd jekyll
>   $ ls
>   $ git config core.sparsecheckout true
>   $ echo 'docs*' > .git/info/sparse-checkout
>   $ git read-tree -mu HEAD
>   $ ls
>   docs rake
> 
> I didn't expect to see 'rake' amongst the results.

If you look inside the rake/ directory, you should see that only
"docs.rake" was checked out.

The sparse-checkout file uses the same parser as .git/info/exclude. One
important aspect of that file is that entries are _not_ left-anchored
unless they start with "/". So you asked Git to include files named
"docs*" anywhere in the tree.

You probably wanted just:

  echo /docs >.git/info/sparse-checkout

-Peff

```