Subject: Re: [PATCH 4/5] backfill: work with prefix pathspecs

From: Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 17 Mar 2026 15:10:23 -0700

"Derrick Stolee via GitGitGadget" <[email-masked]> writes:

> From: Derrick Stolee <[email-masked]>
>
> The previous change allowed specifying revision arguments over the 'git
> backfill' command-line. This created the opportunity for pathspecs that
> specify a smaller set of starting commits, but otherwise did not restrict
> the blob paths that were downloaded.

"pathspecs that specify a smaller set of starting commits" is
puzzling, as starting commits would be coming from the revision
arguments.  "opportunity for pathspec to further filter commits
to those that touch only the matching paths...", or something?

> Update the path-walk API to accept certain kinds of pathspecs and to
> silently ignore anything too complex.

Hmph, "silently ignore", instead of "no, you cannot use that! and
die", or at least "sorry, I cannot do that, so the result may not be
what you wanted, you've been warned"?

> The current behavior focuses on
> pathspecs that match paths exactly. This includes exact filenames,
> including directory names as prefixes. Pathspecs containing wildcards
> or magic are cleared so the path walk downloads all blobs, as before.

Ah, "we punt and lift the limitation to grab everything, so at least
everything you wanted to have will become available to you, even
though we may download more than what you asked"?  OK, users would
survive that, and as we improve the pathspec support, the user
experience would only improve.  OK.