From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
From: Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>
Subject: Restoring timestamps (Re: Branches & directories)
Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2011 16:01:41 -0500
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Cc: Kyle Moffett <kyle@moffetthome.net>,
	Michael Witten <mfwitten@gmail.com>,
	Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>,
	Evan Shelhamer <shelhamer@imaginarynumber.net>,
	Git Mailing List <git@vger.kernel.org>
To: Hilco Wijbenga <hilco.wijbenga@gmail.com>
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Hilco Wijbenga wrote:
> On 22 August 2011 12:31, Kyle Moffett <kyle@moffetthome.net> wrote:

>> (1) The GIT data-structures simply have no place for file timestamps, and
>> "git stash" is simply a special way of dumping files into a temporary commit.
>
> That's what I thought. The "intentionally" threw me off. It's not
> intentional, it's just a side effect.

For what it's worth: no, it's intentional.  See, for example:

 http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/1564/focus=1680
 https://git.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/GitFaq#Why_isn.27t_Git_preserving_modification_time_on_files.3F

That said, something being intentional does not necessarily mean it is
always _right_.  So, for example, patches to allow a commit to store
some timestamps, with documentation explaining when this is
appropriate, would probably be welcome.  Maybe a good place to store
such information would be a dotfile alongside the file (so old,
unaware git versions could extract the same information without fuss).

Even if this feature were implemented just for "git stash", personally
I would turn it off so "make" could continue to behave as I expect it
to.  But in principle, I don't mind the idea of it existing. :)

Hope that helps,
Jonathan