Fwd: git rm

Fwd: git rm

[Peter]

Greetings to the community of this wonderful piece of software!


I am a lightweigt git user so by all means not a reference, but I was
wondering why exactly does "git rm" also delete the file (remove it
from the working tree). I see it as an unintended behaviour as git is
written in a way that it preserves the most data. Usually git commands
are very basic and the usual workflow requires more consecutive
commands, it even has its own shell. But "git rm" does everything in
one step even though there are lots of scenarios where the file should
be kept. I am aware of the "git rm --cache" command, but from my
perspective "git rm --delete" is the one that is needed...

GUI users and some CLI users (by using trash-put or similar tool) also
use trash before removing the file completely. Does "git rm" support
freedesktop.org trash specification?


Thank you for your answers in advance,
Peter

Re: Fwd: git rm

[Andreas Schwab]

Peter <peter.mx@gmail.com> writes:

> I am a lightweigt git user so by all means not a reference, but I was
> wondering why exactly does "git rm" also delete the file (remove it
> from the working tree). I see it as an unintended behaviour as git is
> written in a way that it preserves the most data.

The data is still preserved.  You can restore it with "git checkout HEAD
<file>".

Andreas.

-- 
Andreas Schwab, schwab@linux-m68k.org
GPG Key fingerprint = 58CA 54C7 6D53 942B 1756  01D3 44D5 214B 8276 4ED5
"And now for something completely different."

Re: Fwd: git rm

[Jeff King]

On Wed, Jul 06, 2016 at 06:42:19PM +0200, Andreas Schwab wrote:

> Peter <peter.mx@gmail.com> writes:
> 
> > I am a lightweigt git user so by all means not a reference, but I was
> > wondering why exactly does "git rm" also delete the file (remove it
> > from the working tree). I see it as an unintended behaviour as git is
> > written in a way that it preserves the most data.
> 
> The data is still preserved.  You can restore it with "git checkout HEAD
> <file>".

Assuming the file is present in HEAD, of course. But if it is not, then
git should (and does) complain and ask for "-f".

-Peff

Re: Fwd: git rm

[Peter]

So if I do:

touch abc
git add abc


And after that I do:

git rm abc


Can you agree that there is an asymmetry of two commands vs. one? Git
add only touches the files in .git/ and git rm ALSO affects the
working tree...

Is "git rm" or "git rm --cache" used more often in practice?


Peter

On 7 July 2016 at 05:35, Jeff King <peff@peff.net> wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 06, 2016 at 06:42:19PM +0200, Andreas Schwab wrote:
>
>> Peter <peter.mx@gmail.com> writes:
>>
>> > I am a lightweigt git user so by all means not a reference, but I was
>> > wondering why exactly does "git rm" also delete the file (remove it
>> > from the working tree). I see it as an unintended behaviour as git is
>> > written in a way that it preserves the most data.
>>
>> The data is still preserved.  You can restore it with "git checkout HEAD
>> <file>".
>
> Assuming the file is present in HEAD, of course. But if it is not, then
> git should (and does) complain and ask for "-f".
>
> -Peff

Re: Fwd: git rm

[Andreas Schwab]

Peter <peter.mx@gmail.com> writes:

> So if I do:
>
> touch abc
> git add abc
>
>
> And after that I do:
>
> git rm abc
error: the following file has changes staged in the index:
    abc
(use --cached to keep the file, or -f to force removal)

Andreas.

-- 
Andreas Schwab, schwab@linux-m68k.org
GPG Key fingerprint = 58CA 54C7 6D53 942B 1756  01D3 44D5 214B 8276 4ED5
"And now for something completely different."

Re: Fwd: git rm

[Peter]

Ah, ok, I see now. But are there any other situations where the "-f"
switch is not needed?

Peter

On 10 July 2016 at 12:57, Andreas Schwab <schwab@linux-m68k.org> wrote:
> Peter <peter.mx@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> So if I do:
>>
>> touch abc
>> git add abc
>>
>>
>> And after that I do:
>>
>> git rm abc
> error: the following file has changes staged in the index:
>     abc
> (use --cached to keep the file, or -f to force removal)
>
> Andreas.
>
> --
> Andreas Schwab, schwab@linux-m68k.org
> GPG Key fingerprint = 58CA 54C7 6D53 942B 1756  01D3 44D5 214B 8276 4ED5
> "And now for something completely different."

Re: Fwd: git rm

[Andreas Schwab]

Peter <peter.mx@gmail.com> writes:

> Ah, ok, I see now. But are there any other situations where the "-f"
> switch is not needed?

When the file is unmodified and matches the index.

Andreas.

-- 
Andreas Schwab, schwab@linux-m68k.org
GPG Key fingerprint = 58CA 54C7 6D53 942B 1756  01D3 44D5 214B 8276 4ED5
"And now for something completely different."