sparse-checkout: reject arguments in cone-mode that look like patterns

In sparse-checkout add/set under cone mode, the arguments passed are
supposed to be directories rather than gitignore-style patterns.
However, given the amount of effort spent in the manual discussing
patterns, it is easy for users to assume they need to pass patterns such
as
   /foo/*
or
   !/bar/*/
or perhaps they really do ignore the directory rule and specify a
random gitignore-style pattern like
   *.c

To help catch such mistakes, throw an error if any of the positional
arguments:
  * starts with any of '/!'
  * contains any of '*?[]'

Inform users they can pass --skip-checks if they have a directory that
really does have such special characters in its name.  (We exclude '\'
because of sparse-checkout's special handling of backslashes; see
the MINGW test in t1091.46.)

Reviewed-by: Derrick Stolee <derrickstolee@github.com>
Signed-off-by: Elijah Newren <newren@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>

1 files changed, 11 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/builtin/sparse-checkout.c b/builtin/sparse-checkout.c
index 38ac37d9c6..a0c8a1499a 100644
--- a/builtin/sparse-checkout.c
+++ b/builtin/sparse-checkout.c
@@ -710,6 +710,17 @@ static void sanitize_paths(int argc, const char **argv,
 	if (prefix && *prefix && !core_sparse_checkout_cone)
 		die(_("please run from the toplevel directory in non-cone mode"));
 
+	if (core_sparse_checkout_cone) {
+		for (i = 0; i < argc; i++) {
+			if (argv[i][0] == '/')
+				die(_("specify directories rather than patterns (no leading slash)"));
+			if (argv[i][0] == '!')
+				die(_("specify directories rather than patterns.  If your directory starts with a '!', pass --skip-checks"));
+			if (strpbrk(argv[i], "*?[]"))
+				die(_("specify directories rather than patterns.  If your directory really has any of '*?[]\\' in it, pass --skip-checks"));
+		}
+	}
+
 	for (i = 0; i < argc; i++) {
 		struct cache_entry *ce;
 		struct index_state *index = the_repository->index;