Sparse checkout not working with recent git versions

[rmunoz]

GitHub Actions recently updated their virtual environments (see ubuntu-latest for example) and now git cli version is 2.37. This is causing problems with git sparse-checkout set used in sparse_clone.sh script because it doesn't admit patterns to be passed.

Looking at the git docs for a version that works and the one that doesn't seems that we we need to pass --no-cone flag in order to keep using patterns in the sparse checkout. I tested locally modifying the script in my local virtual environment and works but I'm not sure if it's the "real" fix, not very familiar with sparse checkouts.

[jorgheymans]

I spent some time debugging the same issue and just came to report my findings.

In sparse_clone.sh, when I remove the --sparse option alltogether everything starts working. Indeed, with the --sparse option it only checks out the repository root. The script relies on the subsequent call to git sparse-checkout which fails, when you add an exit code check like the clone itself this becomes clear:

+git sparse-checkout set ${dirs[*]} || exit 1

You see that it fails:

fatal: 'mkdocs.yml' is not a directory; to treat it as a directory anyway, rerun with --skip-checks

When having a look at the contents of ${dirs[*]} , I see that in my case it expands to mkdocs mkdocs.yml. Note that i configured my docs_dir to mkdocs so that is expected. That it is passing also mkdocs.yml is probably not expected. My attempts at digging further were hampered by my lack of python knowledge, so i hope above info is useful to troubleshoot things.

[jdoiro3]

@rmunoz, thanks for raising this issue. I see your company forked the repo and you made some changes. Feel free to create a pull request. You could even add the runners that have the newer git version to the integration tests to make sure this works with the newer version.

[rmunoz]

@jdoiro3 yep, tbh is just a quick and dirty workaround to unblock my team that basically adds the --no-cone to the sparse_clone python function:

args = [self.url, self.name, self.branch] + ["--no-cone"] + dirs

I'm going to be off for two weeks (summer break) but once I'll be back my plan is to prepare a proper fix checking the git version as you're already doing for older git versions.

[jdoiro3]

@rmunoz and @jorgheymans - as an FYI I have a PR (#40) where I'm starting to run integration tests with different versions of git and python.

[jdoiro3]

This should be fixed with v0.4.4. Please let me know if this in fact is still an issue.

[jorgheymans]

Thanks @jdoiro3 it works now !

[rmunoz]

Thanks @jdoiro3, it works fine 👏