bilgebag's Journal: GIT ideas

Ideas for git:

1) partial checkouts

Start with a non-checked-out repository (i.e. .git subdirectory only, -n)

find the correct sha1 for the last revision of file x (???)

What would be very useful is to get a list of files which differ between branch 'b' and the master.

git diff --name-only -r yellow navy

then use git-cat-file blob x to get a copy of the file(s) you want and place them into the correct place (creating necessary directories as you go)

This saves rewriting git-checkout-index which is a native/builtin

git-status and git-commit must be taught to ignore 'missing' files if the working copy is a partial one (git config setting), is it a great loss if it's not possible to remove a file in a partially checked-out repository? I think not

Additional config option for weird source/buildpath based languages (DataFlex, PfxPlus) where position in the repository hierarchy is not significant for building, which would hard-link the partially checked-out files into the current directory.

2) preserving multiple uncommitted working copies across branches

When switching branches and unindexed modifications exist,
    git-branch -D ${current-branch}.working
    git-branch ${current-branch}.working
    git-checkout ${current-branch}.working
    git-commit -a -m 'temporary preservation commit'

    then switch to the other branch

when switching to a branch, check if there is a ${new-branch}.working branch, check it out, then checkout the requested branch (which will leave the modifications in place) and then git-branch -D ${new-branch}.working

3) if there is nothing to commit and -q is passed, there should be no action and no output (at least not on stdout)

4) manual corrections: fewer for less (where again?) and check path for patch typos.