git-commit-vandalism/Documentation/git-check-ignore.txt
Elijah Newren 7ec8125fba check-ignore: fix documentation and implementation to match
check-ignore has two different modes, and neither of these modes has an
implementation that matches the documentation.  These modes differ in
whether they just print paths or whether they also print the final
pattern matched by the path.  The fix is different for both modes, so
I'll discuss both separately.

=== First (default) mode ===

The first mode is documented as:

    For each pathname given via the command-line or from a file via
    --stdin, check whether the file is excluded by .gitignore (or other
    input files to the exclude mechanism) and output the path if it is
    excluded.

However, it fails to do this because it did not account for negated
patterns.  Commands other than check-ignore verify exclusion rules via
calling

   ... -> treat_one_path() -> is_excluded() -> last_matching_pattern()

while check-ignore has a call path of the form:

   ... -> check_ignore()                    -> last_matching_pattern()

The fact that the latter does not include the call to is_excluded()
means that it is susceptible to to messing up negated patterns (since
that is the only significant thing is_excluded() adds over
last_matching_pattern()).  Unfortunately, we can't make it just call
is_excluded(), because the same codepath is used by the verbose mode
which needs to know the matched pattern in question.  This brings us
to...

=== Second (verbose) mode ===

The second mode, known as verbose mode, references the first in the
documentation and says:

    Also output details about the matching pattern (if any) for each
    given pathname. For precedence rules within and between exclude
    sources, see gitignore(5).

The "Also" means it will print patterns that match the exclude rules as
noted for the first mode, and also print which pattern matches.  Unless
more information is printed than just pathname and pattern (which is not
done), this definition is somewhat ill-defined and perhaps even
self-contradictory for negated patterns: A path which matches a negated
exclude pattern is NOT excluded and thus shouldn't be printed by the
former logic, while it certainly does match one of the explicit patterns
and thus should be printed by the latter logic.

=== Resolution ==

Since the second mode exists to find out which pattern matches given
paths, and showing the user a pattern that begins with a '!' is
sufficient for them to figure out whether the pattern is excluded, the
existing behavior is desirable -- we just need to update the
documentation to match the implementation (i.e. it is about printing
which pattern is matched by paths, not about showing which paths are
excluded).

For the first or default mode, users just want to know whether a pattern
is excluded.  As such, the existing documentation is desirable; change
the implementation to match the documented behavior.

Finally, also adjust a few tests in t0008 that were caught up by this
discrepancy in how negated paths were handled.

Signed-off-by: Elijah Newren <newren@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
2020-02-18 15:28:58 -08:00

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git-check-ignore(1)
===================
NAME
----
git-check-ignore - Debug gitignore / exclude files
SYNOPSIS
--------
[verse]
'git check-ignore' [<options>] <pathname>...
'git check-ignore' [<options>] --stdin
DESCRIPTION
-----------
For each pathname given via the command-line or from a file via
`--stdin`, check whether the file is excluded by .gitignore (or other
input files to the exclude mechanism) and output the path if it is
excluded.
By default, tracked files are not shown at all since they are not
subject to exclude rules; but see `--no-index'.
OPTIONS
-------
-q, --quiet::
Don't output anything, just set exit status. This is only
valid with a single pathname.
-v, --verbose::
Instead of printing the paths that are excluded, for each path
that matches an exclude pattern, print the exclude pattern
together with the path. (Matching an exclude pattern usually
means the path is excluded, but if the pattern begins with '!'
then it is a negated pattern and matching it means the path is
NOT excluded.)
+
For precedence rules within and between exclude sources, see
linkgit:gitignore[5].
--stdin::
Read pathnames from the standard input, one per line,
instead of from the command-line.
-z::
The output format is modified to be machine-parseable (see
below). If `--stdin` is also given, input paths are separated
with a NUL character instead of a linefeed character.
-n, --non-matching::
Show given paths which don't match any pattern. This only
makes sense when `--verbose` is enabled, otherwise it would
not be possible to distinguish between paths which match a
pattern and those which don't.
--no-index::
Don't look in the index when undertaking the checks. This can
be used to debug why a path became tracked by e.g. `git add .`
and was not ignored by the rules as expected by the user or when
developing patterns including negation to match a path previously
added with `git add -f`.
OUTPUT
------
By default, any of the given pathnames which match an ignore pattern
will be output, one per line. If no pattern matches a given path,
nothing will be output for that path; this means that path will not be
ignored.
If `--verbose` is specified, the output is a series of lines of the form:
<source> <COLON> <linenum> <COLON> <pattern> <HT> <pathname>
<pathname> is the path of a file being queried, <pattern> is the
matching pattern, <source> is the pattern's source file, and <linenum>
is the line number of the pattern within that source. If the pattern
contained a `!` prefix or `/` suffix, it will be preserved in the
output. <source> will be an absolute path when referring to the file
configured by `core.excludesFile`, or relative to the repository root
when referring to `.git/info/exclude` or a per-directory exclude file.
If `-z` is specified, the pathnames in the output are delimited by the
null character; if `--verbose` is also specified then null characters
are also used instead of colons and hard tabs:
<source> <NULL> <linenum> <NULL> <pattern> <NULL> <pathname> <NULL>
If `-n` or `--non-matching` are specified, non-matching pathnames will
also be output, in which case all fields in each output record except
for <pathname> will be empty. This can be useful when running
non-interactively, so that files can be incrementally streamed to
STDIN of a long-running check-ignore process, and for each of these
files, STDOUT will indicate whether that file matched a pattern or
not. (Without this option, it would be impossible to tell whether the
absence of output for a given file meant that it didn't match any
pattern, or that the output hadn't been generated yet.)
Buffering happens as documented under the `GIT_FLUSH` option in
linkgit:git[1]. The caller is responsible for avoiding deadlocks
caused by overfilling an input buffer or reading from an empty output
buffer.
EXIT STATUS
-----------
0::
One or more of the provided paths is ignored.
1::
None of the provided paths are ignored.
128::
A fatal error was encountered.
SEE ALSO
--------
linkgit:gitignore[5]
linkgit:git-config[1]
linkgit:git-ls-files[1]
GIT
---
Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite