Elijah Newren wrote: > On Tue, Oct 5, 2021 at 6:20 AM Victoria Dye via GitGitGadget > <gitgitgadget@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: >> >> From: Victoria Dye <vdye@xxxxxxxxxx> >> >> Add a new `--force-full-index` option to `git update-index`, which skips >> explicitly setting `command_requires_full_index`. This lets `git >> update-index --force-full-index` run as a command without sparse index >> compatibility implemented, even after it receives sparse index compatibility >> updates. >> >> By using `git update-index --force-full-index` in the `t1092` test >> `sparse-index is expanded and converted back`, commands can continue to >> integrate with the sparse index without the need to keep modifying the >> command used in the test. > > So...we're adding a permanent user-facing command line flag, whose > purpose is just to help us with the transition work of implementing > sparse indexes everywhere? Am I reading that right, or is that just > the reason for t1092 and there are more reasons for it elsewhere? > > Also, I'm curious if update-index is the right place to add this. If > you don't want a sparse index anymore, wouldn't a user want to run > git sparse-checkout disable > ? Or is the point that you do want to keep the sparse checkout, but > you just don't want the index to also be sparse? Still, even in that > case, it seems like adding a subcommand or flag to an existing > sparse-checkout subcommand would feel more natural, since > sparse-checkout is the command the user uses to request to get into a > sparse-checkout and sparse index. > This came out of a conversation [1] on an earlier version of this patch. Because the `t1092 - sparse-index is expanded and converted back` test verifies sparse index compatibility (i.e., expand the index when reading, collapse back to sparse when writing) on commands that don't have any sparse index integration, it needed to be changed from `git reset` to something else. However, as we keep integrating commands with sparse index we'd need to keep changing the command in the test, creating a bunch of patches doing effectively the same thing for no long-term benefit. The `--force-full-index` flag isn't meant to be used externally or modify the index in any "new" way - it's really just a "test" version of `git update-index` that we guarantee will accurately represent a command using the default settings. Right now, it does exactly what `git update-index` (without the flag) does, and will only behave differently once `git update-index` is integrated with sparse index. Using `--force-full-index`, the test won't need to be regularly updated and will continue to catch errors like: 1. Changing the default value of `command_requires_full_index` to 0 2. Not expanding a sparse index to full when `command_requires_full_index` is 1 3. Not collapsing the index back to sparse if sparse index is enabled I see the issue of introducing a test-only option (when sparse index is integrated everywhere, shouldn't it be deprecated?). If there's a way to make this more obviously internal/temporary, I'm happy to modify it. Or, if semi-frequent updates of the command in the test aren't a huge issue, I can revert to V1. [1] https://lore.kernel.org/git/xmqqr1d58v9x.fsf@gitster.g/
