sparse-checkout: provide a new reapply subcommand

If commands like merge or rebase materialize files as part of their work,
or a previous sparse-checkout command failed to update individual files
due to dirty changes, users may want a command to simply 'reapply' the
sparsity rules.  Provide one.

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

1 files changed, 10 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/Documentation/git-sparse-checkout.txt b/Documentation/git-sparse-checkout.txt
index c0342e5393..1a3ace6082 100644
--- a/Documentation/git-sparse-checkout.txt
+++ b/Documentation/git-sparse-checkout.txt
@@ -70,6 +70,16 @@ C-style quoted strings.
 	`core.sparseCheckoutCone` is enabled, the given patterns are interpreted
 	as directory names as in the 'set' subcommand.
 
+'reapply::
+	Reapply the sparsity pattern rules to paths in the working tree.
+	Commands like merge or rebase can materialize paths to do their
+	work (e.g. in order to show you a conflict), and other
+	sparse-checkout commands might fail to sparsify an individual file
+	(e.g. because it has unstaged changes or conflicts).  In such
+	cases, it can make sense to run `git sparse-checkout reapply` later
+	after cleaning up affected paths (e.g. resolving conflicts, undoing
+	or committing changes, etc.).
+
 'disable'::
 	Disable the `core.sparseCheckout` config setting, and restore the
 	working directory to include all files. Leaves the sparse-checkout