git-commit-vandalism/Documentation/git-clean.txt
Elijah Newren 09487f2cba clean: avoid removing untracked files in a nested git repository
Users expect files in a nested git repository to be left alone unless
sufficiently forced (with two -f's).  Unfortunately, in certain
circumstances, git would delete both tracked (and possibly dirty) files
and untracked files within a nested repository.  To explain how this
happens, let's contrast a couple cases.  First, take the following
example setup (which assumes we are already within a git repo):

   git init nested
   cd nested
   >tracked
   git add tracked
   git commit -m init
   >untracked
   cd ..

In this setup, everything works as expected; running 'git clean -fd'
will result in fill_directory() returning the following paths:
   nested/
   nested/tracked
   nested/untracked
and then correct_untracked_entries() would notice this can be compressed
to
   nested/
and then since "nested/" is a directory, we would call
remove_dirs("nested/", ...), which would
check is_nonbare_repository_dir() and then decide to skip it.

However, if someone also creates an ignored file:
   >nested/ignored
then running 'git clean -fd' would result in fill_directory() returning
the same paths:
   nested/
   nested/tracked
   nested/untracked
but correct_untracked_entries() will notice that we had ignored entries
under nested/ and thus simplify this list to
   nested/tracked
   nested/untracked
Since these are not directories, we do not call remove_dirs() which was
the only place that had the is_nonbare_repository_dir() safety check --
resulting in us deleting both the untracked file and the tracked (and
possibly dirty) file.

One possible fix for this issue would be walking the parent directories
of each path and checking if they represent nonbare repositories, but
that would be wasteful.  Even if we added caching of some sort, it's
still a waste because we should have been able to check that "nested/"
represented a nonbare repository before even descending into it in the
first place.  Add a DIR_SKIP_NESTED_GIT flag to dir_struct.flags and use
it to prevent fill_directory() and friends from descending into nested
git repos.

With this change, we also modify two regression tests added in commit
91479b9c72 ("t7300: add tests to document behavior of clean and nested
git", 2015-06-15).  That commit, nor its series, nor the six previous
iterations of that series on the mailing list discussed why those tests
coded the expectation they did.  In fact, it appears their purpose was
simply to test _existing_ behavior to make sure that the performance
changes didn't change the behavior.  However, these two tests directly
contradicted the manpage's claims that two -f's were required to delete
files/directories under a nested git repository.  While one could argue
that the user gave an explicit path which matched files/directories that
were within a nested repository, there's a slippery slope that becomes
very difficult for users to understand once you go down that route (e.g.
what if they specified "git clean -f -d '*.c'"?)  It would also be hard
to explain what the exact behavior was; avoid such problems by making it
really simple.

Also, clean up some grammar errors describing this functionality in the
git-clean manpage.

Finally, there are still a couple bugs with -ffd not cleaning out enough
(e.g.  missing the nested .git) and with -ffdX possibly cleaning out the
wrong files (paying attention to outer .gitignore instead of inner).
This patch does not address these cases at all (and does not change the
behavior relative to those flags), it only fixes the handling when given
a single -f.  See
https://public-inbox.org/git/20190905212043.GC32087@szeder.dev/ for more
discussion of the -ffd[X?] bugs.

Signed-off-by: Elijah Newren <newren@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
2019-09-17 12:20:35 -07:00

143 lines
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git-clean(1)
============
NAME
----
git-clean - Remove untracked files from the working tree
SYNOPSIS
--------
[verse]
'git clean' [-d] [-f] [-i] [-n] [-q] [-e <pattern>] [-x | -X] [--] <path>...
DESCRIPTION
-----------
Cleans the working tree by recursively removing files that are not
under version control, starting from the current directory.
Normally, only files unknown to Git are removed, but if the `-x`
option is specified, ignored files are also removed. This can, for
example, be useful to remove all build products.
If any optional `<path>...` arguments are given, only those paths
are affected.
OPTIONS
-------
-d::
Normally, when no <path> is specified, git clean will not
recurse into untracked directories to avoid removing too much.
Specify -d to have it recurse into such directories as well.
If any paths are specified, -d is irrelevant; all untracked
files matching the specified paths (with exceptions for nested
git directories mentioned under `--force`) will be removed.
-f::
--force::
If the Git configuration variable clean.requireForce is not set
to false, 'git clean' will refuse to delete files or directories
unless given -f or -i. Git will refuse to modify untracked
nested git repositories (directories with a .git subdirectory)
unless a second -f is given.
-i::
--interactive::
Show what would be done and clean files interactively. See
``Interactive mode'' for details.
-n::
--dry-run::
Don't actually remove anything, just show what would be done.
-q::
--quiet::
Be quiet, only report errors, but not the files that are
successfully removed.
-e <pattern>::
--exclude=<pattern>::
Use the given exclude pattern in addition to the standard ignore rules
(see linkgit:gitignore[5]).
-x::
Don't use the standard ignore rules (see linkgit:gitignore[5]), but
still use the ignore rules given with `-e` options from the command
line. This allows removing all untracked
files, including build products. This can be used (possibly in
conjunction with 'git reset') to create a pristine
working directory to test a clean build.
-X::
Remove only files ignored by Git. This may be useful to rebuild
everything from scratch, but keep manually created files.
Interactive mode
----------------
When the command enters the interactive mode, it shows the
files and directories to be cleaned, and goes into its
interactive command loop.
The command loop shows the list of subcommands available, and
gives a prompt "What now> ". In general, when the prompt ends
with a single '>', you can pick only one of the choices given
and type return, like this:
------------
*** Commands ***
1: clean 2: filter by pattern 3: select by numbers
4: ask each 5: quit 6: help
What now> 1
------------
You also could say `c` or `clean` above as long as the choice is unique.
The main command loop has 6 subcommands.
clean::
Start cleaning files and directories, and then quit.
filter by pattern::
This shows the files and directories to be deleted and issues an
"Input ignore patterns>>" prompt. You can input space-separated
patterns to exclude files and directories from deletion.
E.g. "*.c *.h" will excludes files end with ".c" and ".h" from
deletion. When you are satisfied with the filtered result, press
ENTER (empty) back to the main menu.
select by numbers::
This shows the files and directories to be deleted and issues an
"Select items to delete>>" prompt. When the prompt ends with double
'>>' like this, you can make more than one selection, concatenated
with whitespace or comma. Also you can say ranges. E.g. "2-5 7,9"
to choose 2,3,4,5,7,9 from the list. If the second number in a
range is omitted, all remaining items are selected. E.g. "7-" to
choose 7,8,9 from the list. You can say '*' to choose everything.
Also when you are satisfied with the filtered result, press ENTER
(empty) back to the main menu.
ask each::
This will start to clean, and you must confirm one by one in order
to delete items. Please note that this action is not as efficient
as the above two actions.
quit::
This lets you quit without do cleaning.
help::
Show brief usage of interactive git-clean.
SEE ALSO
--------
linkgit:gitignore[5]
GIT
---
Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite