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diff --git a/www/text.causal.agency/023-sparse-checkout.7 b/www/text.causal.agency/023-sparse-checkout.7 new file mode 100644 index 00000000..925bc043 --- /dev/null +++ b/www/text.causal.agency/023-sparse-checkout.7 @@ -0,0 +1,144 @@ +.Dd June 9, 2021 +.Dt SPARSE-CHECKOUT 7 +.Os "Causal Agency" +. +.Sh NAME +.Nm Sparse Checkout +.Nd a cool git feature +. +.Sh DESCRIPTION +I was going to write a post about +.Xr git-subtree 1 +(and I still plan to!) +but while talking about it +with a friend +I came across another command: +.Xr git-sparse-checkout 1 . +I got pretty excited because +I already had a use case for it. +. +.Pp +.Xr git-sparse-checkout 1 +does pretty much what it sounds like. +It lets you only have +a subset of files in the repository actually +.Dq checked out . +This is really useful +for huge respositories +where you are only interested in +some part of it. +Any operation touching the working tree +is much faster because +it can skip all the files you don't care about. +. +.Pp +My use case is with the +.Fx +.Xr ports 7 +tree, +which recently moved to git +and contains almost 14 thousand files. +Working with the whole repository +was super painful. +.Xr git-status 1 , +which I run as a habit +when my shell is idle, +would take dozens of seconds +to check the whole working tree +and report back. +(I didn't get any real time measurements +before enabling +.Xr git-sparse-checkout 1 , +and I'm not about to disable it now, +since it'd have to check out +all those files again.) +I'm only actually working on +a small handful of ports, +so all that work is wasted. +Time to turn on sparse checkout: +.Bd -literal -offset indent +git sparse-checkout init --cone +.Ed +. +.Pp +The +.Fl \-cone +option here +(which I keep reading as +.Dq clone +because it's git) +restricts the kinds of patterns +you can use to select files to check out, +but makes the calculation more efficient. +Basically it means you can only select +paths along with everything below them, +which I think is pretty much +always what you want anyway. +Enabling sparse checkout +can take quite a while +because it has to do a lot of un-checking-out. +I should mention +that you can pass +.Fl \-sparse +to +.Xr git-clone 1 +to avoid ever checking out +the whole tree. +. +.Pp +The default selection when you run +.Cm init +is to check out all the files +at the root of the repository, +but none of the subdirectories. +For +.Xr ports 7 , +I also want to check out +the shared scripts and Makefiles: +.Bd -literal -offset indent +git sparse-checkout add Keywords Mk Templates Tools +.Ed +. +.Pp +And then I can selectively check out +just the ports I'm working on: +.Bd -literal -offset indent +git sparse-checkout add irc/catgirl irc/pounce +.Ed +. +.Pp +After enabling sparse checkout, +.Xr git-status 1 +takes what I'd call +a normal amount of time. +I also did this on +a couple-weeks-out-of-date copy of the +.Xr ports 7 +tree, +and when I ran +.Xr git-pull 1 +it was also really quick, +because it didn't have to bother +updating all those files +I'm not interested in. +It still downloads all the git objects, +of course, +and you can just add any new paths you need +to the sparse checkout list. +My disk usage also went down +by about a gigabyte. +. +.Pp +I'm super pleased to discover this part of git, +because it makes working with huge +and/or monorepo-style repositories +so much more feasible! +You can see how I came across it, +since +.Xr git-subtree 1 +is also a useful tool for monorepos. +Stay tuned for that post, +I guess :) +. +.Sh AUTHORS +.An june Aq Mt june@causal.agency |