Git ls-files behaviour

Question

It's not clear how git ls-files using wildcards actually functions.

I started with the git ls-files *.* command which works okay. It shows all the files under version control in all the underlying subdirectories But now I want to select a set of files. Example : "Device_*.xml"

So I execute git ls-files Device_*.xml but this gives no result?!

I am aware the command is case sensitive. What is wrong? Below is the list of command's I execute with the output. Git version used : 2.6.1.windows.1

D:\GIT\repo>git clean -xdf
D:\GIT\repo>git reset --hard

HEAD is now at 7de8f5b [IP-826-generic-configuration-management-ticket] Merge remote-tracking branch 'origin' into IP-826-generic-configuration-management-ticket

D:\GIT\repo>git status

On branch IP-826-generic-configuration-management-ticket

Your branch is up-to-date with 'origin/IP-826-generic-configuration-management-ticket'.

Untracked files:
  (use "git add <file>..." to include in what will be committed)

nothing added to commit but untracked files present (use "git add" to track)

 D:\GIT\repo\Imagepipe\SettingsDB\GeneratedDevicesAllPlatforms>dir Device_*.xml /s

<LOT OF DEVICE_*.xml FILES HERE> 

12/10/2015  10:46               681 Device_GeneratedDevices_0-0-0_0.xml
1 File(s)            681 bytes

 Directory of            D:\GIT\repo\Tools\DevTools\SettingsGenerator\SLIB2_GenerateSettings\Test\DB7\GeneratedDevices\D1
12/10/2015  10:46             1,997 Device_D1_0-0-0_0.xml
1 File(s)          1,997 bytes

 Directory of     D:\GIT\repo\Tools\DevTools\SettingsGenerator\SLIB2_GenerateSettings\Test\DB7\S_NOCHECK

12/10/2015  10:46             1,558 Device_S_NOCHECK_0-0-0_0.xml
1 File(s)          1,558 bytes

 Directory of     D:\GIT\repo\Tools\DevTools\SettingsGenerator\SLIB2_GenerateSettings\Test\DB7\S_TEST

12/10/2015  10:46             1,536 Device_S_TEST_0-0-0_0.xml
1 File(s)          1,536 bytes

Total Files Listed:
         968 File(s)     14,032,982 bytes
           0 Dir(s)  18,400,256,000 bytes free

D:\GIT\repo>git ls-files Device_*.xml
D:\GIT\repo>

**No result!** 

Answer 1

The problem is that if you use the asterisk (*) in a non-string environment, the command line interpreter will perform expansion itself: it will look to files in the directory, not necessary under version control and add these as argument. For example, say the directory contains a files:

foo-a.txt
foo-b.txt

and you call git ls-files foo-*.txt, actually you call the command git ls-files foo-a.txt foo-b.txt. Now it is possible thatfoo-c.txt is under version control, but was once removed, and that foo-a.txt and foo-b.txt are not, resulting in the fact hat no file is listed.

If you however use the asterisk in a string environment, like git ls-files "foo-*.txt", the asterisk is interpreted by git. So in case there is a file in the repository that matches the wildcard, it will be returned.

Example:

> git init 
Initialized empty Git repository in /foo/bar/.git/
> ls
> touch foo-c.txt 
> git add .; git commit -am 'foo-c'
[master (root-commit) 3523fc3] foo-c
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+)
 create mode 100644 foo-c.txt
> rm foo-c.txt 
> git ls-files
foo-c.txt
> git ls-files foo-*.txt
fish: No matches for wildcard 'foo-*.txt'.
git ls-files foo-*.txt
             ^
> git ls-files 'foo-*.txt'
foo-c.txt
> touch foo-a.txt
> touch foo-b.txt
> git ls-files 'foo-*.txt'
foo-c.txt
> git ls-files foo-*.txt

In the example, we first setup a git repository, then we create a file foo-c.txt. Now we add that file and make a commit. Next we remove the file. If we now call git ls-files foo-*.txt, it is fish (the shell) that complains that no such file can be found. If we however pass foo-*.txt in a string, git has no problem matching foo-c.txt.

If we later add foo-a.txt and foo-b.txt to the directory, by performing the wildcard outside the string environment, git gets git ls-files foo-a.txt foo-b.txt, but since no such file is under subversioning, it returns nothing (it cannot find these files). If you however use a wildcard withing a string, again it will come up with foo-c.txt.