On 8/17/2022 1:34 PM, Victoria Dye wrote: > Junio C Hamano wrote: >> Yup. Is that "--sparse" or "--unsparse"? We are busting the sparse >> boundary and looking for everything, and calling the option to do so >> "--sparse" somehow feels counter-intuitive, at least to me. > > It is a bit unintuitive, but '--sparse' is already used to mean "operate on > SKIP_WORKTREE entries (i.e., pretend the repo isn't a sparse-checkout)" in > both 'add' (0299a69694 (add: implement the --sparse option, 2021-09-24)) and > 'rm' (f9786f9b85 (rm: add --sparse option, 2021-09-24)). The > 'checkout-index' option '--ignore-skip-worktree-bits' indicates similar > behavior (and is, IMO, similarly confusing with its use of "ignore"). > > I'm not sure '--unsparse' would fit as an alternative, though, since 'git > grep' isn't really "unsparsifying" the repo (to me, that would imply > updating the index to remove the 'SKIP_WORKTREE' flag). Rather, it's looking > at files that are sparse when, by default, it does not. > > I still like the consistency of '--sparse' with existing similar options in > other commands but, if we want to try something clearer here, maybe > something like '--search-sparse' is more descriptive? My interpretation of '--sparse' is "include skip-worktree paths" thinking of those paths being "sparse paths". A too-long version could be '--ignore-sparse-checkout', but I can understand the confusion where '--sparse' is interpreted as '--respect-sparse-checkout'. The existing pattern here means that it isn't Shaoxuan's responsibility to pick a better name, but if we are interested in changing the name, then we have some work to replace the previous '--sparse' options with that name. I could do that replacement, assuming we land on a better name and are willing to have that change of behavior. Thanks, -Stolee
