There are three main modes of operation for apply: applying only to the worktree, applying to the worktree and index (--index), and applying only to the index (--cached). The --intent-to-add flag modifies the first of these modes, applying only to the worktree, in a way which touches the index, because intents to add are special index entries. However, it has not ever worked correctly in any but the most trivial (empty repository) cases, because the index was never read in (in apply, this is done in read_apply_cache()) before writing to it. The update_index flag is set in apply_patch() to mean that we are touching the index at all, as opposed to the check_index flag indicating --index mode. Therefore, the reading of the index should be gated by the update_index flag rather than the check_index flag, so that we are prepared to work with the index before we begin adding intents to add to it. Reported-by: Ryan Hodges <rhodges@xxxxxxxxx> Original-patch-by: Johannes Altmanninger <aclopte@xxxxxxxxx> Signed-off-by: Raymond E. Pasco <ray@xxxxxxxxxxxx> --- apply.c | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/apply.c b/apply.c index 5e39cadde4..3bde54a04a 100644 --- a/apply.c +++ b/apply.c @@ -4837,7 +4837,7 @@ static int apply_patch(struct apply_state *state, LOCK_DIE_ON_ERROR); } - if (state->check_index && read_apply_cache(state) < 0) { + if (state->update_index && read_apply_cache(state) < 0) { error(_("unable to read index file")); res = -128; goto end; -- 2.49.0.1106.gc0efa3ba58