diff: enable and test the sparse index

Enable the sparse index within the 'git diff' command. Its implementation
already safely integrates with the sparse index because it shares code
with the 'git status' and 'git checkout' commands that were already
integrated.  For more details see:

d76723ee53 (status: use sparse-index throughout, 2021-07-14)
1ba5f45132 (checkout: stop expanding sparse indexes, 2021-06-29)

The most interesting thing to do is to add tests that verify that 'git
diff' behaves correctly when the sparse index is enabled. These cases are:

1. The index is not expanded for 'diff' and 'diff --staged'
2. 'diff' and 'diff --staged' behave the same in full checkout, sparse
checkout, and sparse index repositories in the following partially-staged
scenarios (i.e. the index, HEAD, and working directory differ at a given
path):
    1. Path is within sparse-checkout cone
    2. Path is outside sparse-checkout cone
    3. A merge conflict exists for paths outside sparse-checkout cone

The `p2000` tests demonstrate a ~44% execution time reduction for 'git
diff' and a ~86% execution time reduction for 'git diff --staged' using a
sparse index:

Test                                      before  after
-------------------------------------------------------------
2000.30: git diff (full-v3)               0.33    0.34 +3.0%
2000.31: git diff (full-v4)               0.33    0.35 +6.1%
2000.32: git diff (sparse-v3)             0.53    0.31 -41.5%
2000.33: git diff (sparse-v4)             0.54    0.29 -46.3%
2000.34: git diff --cached (full-v3)      0.07    0.07 +0.0%
2000.35: git diff --cached (full-v4)      0.07    0.08 +14.3%
2000.36: git diff --cached (sparse-v3)    0.28    0.04 -85.7%
2000.37: git diff --cached (sparse-v4)    0.23    0.03 -87.0%

Co-authored-by: Derrick Stolee <dstolee@microsoft.com>
Signed-off-by: Lessley Dennington <lessleydennington@gmail.com>
Reviewed-by: Elijah Newren <newren@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>

1 files changed, 5 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/builtin/diff.c b/builtin/diff.c
index dd8ce688ba..fa4683377e 100644
--- a/builtin/diff.c
+++ b/builtin/diff.c
@@ -437,6 +437,11 @@ int cmd_diff(int argc, const char **argv, const char *prefix)
 
 	prefix = setup_git_directory_gently(&nongit);
 
+	if (!nongit) {
+		prepare_repo_settings(the_repository);
+		the_repository->settings.command_requires_full_index = 0;
+	}
+
 	if (!no_index) {
 		/*
 		 * Treat git diff with at least one path outside of the