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git status: document trade-offs in choosing parameters to the -u option
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In some repostories users experience that "git status" command takes
long time.  The command spends some time searching the file system
for untracked files.

Explain the trade-off struck by the default choice of `normal` to
help users make an appropriate choice better, before talking about
the configuration variable.

Inspired by Torsten Bögershausen.

Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
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Junio C Hamano committed Mar 15, 2013
1 parent 1599999 commit 5823eb2
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14 changes: 10 additions & 4 deletions Documentation/git-status.txt
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -43,15 +43,21 @@ OPTIONS
Show untracked files.
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The mode parameter is optional (defaults to 'all'), and is used to
specify the handling of untracked files; when -u is not used, the
default is 'normal', i.e. show untracked files and directories.
specify the handling of untracked files.
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The possible options are:
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- 'no' - Show no untracked files
- 'normal' - Shows untracked files and directories
- 'no' - Show no untracked files.
- 'normal' - Shows untracked files and directories.
- 'all' - Also shows individual files in untracked directories.
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When `-u` option is not used, untracked files and directories are
shown (i.e. the same as specifying `normal`), to help you avoid
forgetting to add newly created files. Because it takes extra work
to find untracked files in the filesystem, this mode may take some
time in a large working tree. You can use `no` to have `git status`
return more quickly without showing untracked files.
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The default can be changed using the status.showUntrackedFiles
configuration variable documented in linkgit:git-config[1].

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