From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Jeff King Subject: Re: Bug? ignored files overwritten by checkout Date: Thu, 15 Aug 2013 08:06:58 -0400 Message-ID: <20130815120658.GA22102@sigill.intra.peff.net> References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Cc: git@vger.kernel.org To: Damien Robert X-From: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Thu Aug 15 14:07:13 2013 Return-path: Envelope-to: gcvg-git-2@plane.gmane.org Received: from vger.kernel.org ([209.132.180.67]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1V9wKe-0003uM-ES for gcvg-git-2@plane.gmane.org; Thu, 15 Aug 2013 14:07:12 +0200 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1753605Ab3HOMHF (ORCPT ); Thu, 15 Aug 2013 08:07:05 -0400 Received: from cloud.peff.net ([50.56.180.127]:46632 "EHLO peff.net" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1752994Ab3HOMHE (ORCPT ); Thu, 15 Aug 2013 08:07:04 -0400 Received: (qmail 20636 invoked by uid 102); 15 Aug 2013 12:07:04 -0000 Received: from c-71-63-4-13.hsd1.va.comcast.net (HELO sigill.intra.peff.net) (71.63.4.13) (smtp-auth username relayok, mechanism cram-md5) by peff.net (qpsmtpd/0.84) with ESMTPA; Thu, 15 Aug 2013 07:07:04 -0500 Received: by sigill.intra.peff.net (sSMTP sendmail emulation); Thu, 15 Aug 2013 08:06:58 -0400 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: Sender: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Precedence: bulk List-ID: X-Mailing-List: git@vger.kernel.org Archived-At: On Thu, Aug 15, 2013 at 06:33:11AM +0000, Damien Robert wrote: > git init > git commit --allow-empty -m "init" > git checkout -b test > echo foo > foo > git add foo > git commit -am 'add foo' > git checkout master > echo 'Important data' > foo #[1] > echo foo > .gitignore > git checkout test > > If I tried a `git checkout test` after [1], I would get the error message > error: The following untracked working tree files would be overwritten by checkout: foo > But after adding foo to .gitignore, I am able to checkout to branch test > without warning. Of course this overwrites foo to the version in test. This is by design. Marking a file in .gitignore tells git that the content is not precious and can be removed if need be. For most ignored files, this is what you want (e.g., you mark "*.o" as ignored because it is generated; you do not want to add it, and you can always make it again). The less common case is a file that is precious and needs to live inside your repository directory, but which you do not want to add (e.g., a config file that affects your project, but should not ever be committed). People have occasionally asked for a .gitignore-like mechanism to mark such files as "precious but do not add". However, nobody has actually implemented anything. -Peff