I believe I found a documentation typo. Documentation/rev-list-options.txt 898: The form '--filter=sparse:oid=<blob-ish>' uses a sparse-checkout 899: specification contained in the blob (or blob-expression) '<blob-ish>' 900: to omit blobs that would **not be not** required for a sparse checkout on 901: the requested refs. I emphasized the "not be not" on line 900. I hope this is the correct place to report this. Thanks --- Jason Hatton