I know it is your preference to complete only directories and
exclude filenames, but I question if the confusion such a design
causes to end-users is worth it.
I think perhaps we're a little caught up in exemplifying commands that
are unrelated to sparse-checkout. As Elijah said in [1], the documentation
states that directories and patterns are acceptable to sparse-checkout but
not files. While it is not reasonable to try to offer every pattern a user
could possibly pass to sparse-checkout, it is reasonable to offer
directories and (in my opinion) will help guide users toward correct usage
of the command.
However, since completion on directories is cone-mode-specific, I am
willing to accept the suggestion to only complete directories if we are in
a cone-mode sparse-checkout and apply it in v4 of this series.
[1]:
https://lore.kernel.org/git/CABPp-BErg-RtyycXaRXYfQHEQXA4q-FU9Q6nYkSHJsqL-04oXw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx/
In light of non-cone mode being removed in the near future (see [1]), it
actually seems it does not make sense to add different behaviors for cone
mode and non-cone mode. I also ran this by some other contributors, who
thought it would be best to complete on both files and directories so as
not to confuse users (as Junio and Szeder have indicated). So, instead of
differentiating between cone mode and non-cone mode in V4, I will plan to
remove directory completion.
[1]:
https://lore.kernel.org/git/CABPp-BEwMAPHGt5xD9jDU58grbrAqCdqNY9Nh8UJGLKuLbArXQ@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx/
