If we're running in nohooks mode, don't bother to accumulate file_list in gclient.

gclient.py

 #!/usr/bin/env python
 # Copyright (c) 2012 The Chromium Authors. All rights reserved.
 # Use of this source code is governed by a BSD-style license that can be
 # found in the LICENSE file.
 
 """Meta checkout manager supporting both Subversion and GIT.
 
 Files
   .gclient      : Current client configuration, written by 'config' command.
                   Format is a Python script defining 'solutions', a list whose
@@ skipping 573 matching lines @@
     """Runs |command| then parse the DEPS file."""
     logging.info('Dependency(%s).run()' % self.name)
     assert self._file_list == []
     if not self.should_process:
       return
     # When running runhooks, there's no need to consult the SCM.
     # All known hooks are expected to run unconditionally regardless of working
     # copy state, so skip the SCM status check.
     run_scm = command not in ('runhooks', 'recurse', None)
     parsed_url = self.LateOverride(self.url)
-    file_list = []
+    file_list = [] if not options.nohooks else None
     if run_scm and parsed_url:
       if isinstance(parsed_url, self.FileImpl):
         # Special support for single-file checkout.
         if not command in (None, 'cleanup', 'diff', 'pack', 'status'):
           # Sadly, pylint doesn't realize that parsed_url is of FileImpl.
           # pylint: disable=E1103
           options.revision = parsed_url.GetRevision()
           self._used_scm = gclient_scm.SVNWrapper(
               parsed_url.GetPath(), self.root.root_dir, self.name)
           self._used_scm.RunCommand('updatesingle',
               options, args + [parsed_url.GetFilename()], file_list)
       else:
         # Create a shallow copy to mutate revision.
         options = copy.copy(options)
         options.revision = revision_overrides.get(self.name)
         self.maybeGetParentRevision(
             command, options, parsed_url, self.parent.name, revision_overrides)
         self._used_scm = gclient_scm.CreateSCM(
             parsed_url, self.root.root_dir, self.name)
         self._used_scm.RunCommand(command, options, args, file_list)
-        file_list = [os.path.join(self.name, f.strip()) for f in file_list]
+        if file_list:
+          file_list = [os.path.join(self.name, f.strip()) for f in file_list]
 
       # TODO(phajdan.jr): We should know exactly when the paths are absolute.
       # Convert all absolute paths to relative.
-      for i in range(len(file_list)):
+      for i in range(len(file_list or [])):
         # It depends on the command being executed (like runhooks vs sync).
         if not os.path.isabs(file_list[i]):
           continue
         prefix = os.path.commonprefix(
             [self.root.root_dir.lower(), file_list[i].lower()])
         file_list[i] = file_list[i][len(prefix):]
         # Strip any leading path separators.
         while file_list[i].startswith(('\\', '/')):
           file_list[i] = file_list[i][1:]
 
     # Always parse the DEPS file.
     self.ParseDepsFile()
 
-    self._run_is_done(file_list, parsed_url)
+    self._run_is_done(file_list or [], parsed_url)
 
     if self.recursion_limit:
       # Parse the dependencies of this dependency.
       for s in self.dependencies:
         work_queue.enqueue(s)
 
     if command == 'recurse':
       if not isinstance(parsed_url, self.FileImpl):
         # Skip file only checkout.
         scm = gclient_scm.GetScmName(parsed_url)
@@ skipping 1172 matching lines @@
   except (gclient_utils.Error, subprocess2.CalledProcessError), e:
     print >> sys.stderr, 'Error: %s' % str(e)
     return 1
 
 
 if '__main__' == __name__:
   fix_encoding.fix_encoding()
   sys.exit(Main(sys.argv[1:]))
 
 # vim: ts=2:sw=2:tw=80:et: