From: Elijah Newren <newren@xxxxxxxxx> Signed-off-by: Elijah Newren <newren@xxxxxxxxx> --- Documentation/git-sparse-checkout.txt | 23 +++++++++++++++++------ 1 file changed, 17 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-) diff --git a/Documentation/git-sparse-checkout.txt b/Documentation/git-sparse-checkout.txt index 2cfb1d8f599..35e4e2d809e 100644 --- a/Documentation/git-sparse-checkout.txt +++ b/Documentation/git-sparse-checkout.txt @@ -273,12 +273,23 @@ manually to ensure Git can behave optimally. INTERNALS -- FULL PATTERN SET ----------------------------- -By default, the sparse-checkout file uses the same syntax as `.gitignore` -files. - -While `$GIT_DIR/info/sparse-checkout` is usually used to specify what -files are included, you can also specify what files are _not_ included, -using negative patterns. For example, to remove the file `unwanted`: +As noted above, the sparse-checkout file uses the same syntax as +`.gitignore` files; see linkgit:gitignore[5] for details. Here, +though, the patterns are usually being used to select which files to +include rather than which files to exclude. (However, it can get a +bit confusing since gitignore-style patterns have negations defined by +patterns which begin with a '!', so you can also select files to _not_ +include.) + +For example, to select everything, and then to remove the file +`unwanted` (so that every file will appear in your working tree except +the file named `unwanted`): + + git sparse-checkout set --no-cone '/*' '!unwanted' + +These patterns are just placed into the +`$GIT_DIR/info/sparse-checkout` as-is, so the contents of that file +at this point would be ---------------- /* -- gitgitgadget
