When we taught these commands about the sparse index, we did not account
for the fact that the `cmd_*()` functions _can_ be called without a
gitdir, namely when `-h` is passed to show the usage.
A plausible approach to address this is to move the
`prepare_repo_settings()` calls right after the `parse_options()` calls:
The latter will never return when it handles `-h`, and therefore it is
safe to assume that we have a `gitdir` at that point, as long as the
built-in is marked with the `RUN_SETUP` flag.
However, it is unfortunately not that simple. In `cmd_pack_objects()`,
for example, the repo settings need to be fully populated so that the
command-line options `--sparse`/`--no-sparse` can override them, not the
other way round.
Therefore, we choose to imitate the strategy taken in `cmd_diff()`,
where we simply do not bother to prepare and initialize the repo
settings unless we have a `gitdir`.
This fixes https://github.com/git-for-windows/git/issues/3688
Signed-off-by: Johannes Schindelin <johannes.schindelin@gmx.de>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
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