Re: 'untracked working tree files would be overwritten by merge' on ignored files?

[Andreas Krey <a.krey@gmx.de>]

On Tue, 14 Jun 2016 10:06:16 +0000, Junio C Hamano wrote:
...
> 
> IIRC, untracked files are kept during merge and across checking out
> another branch.  Files that are deliberately marked as ignored by
> listing them to .gitignore mechanism are considered expendable, and
> they will be removed as necessary.

Apparently not. Waitaminute - I can check out the other branch,
and then the ignored file is replaced by the versioned file there,
as you say.

But when I try to merge the other branch, merge complains as in $subject.

That is, 'git merge other' does not work, but 'git checkout out;
git checkout -; git merge other' works because then the ignored file is
removed in the first checkout and no longer in the way for the merge:

    $ git status --ignored
    On branch side
    Ignored files:
      (use "git add -f <file>..." to include in what will be committed)

	    a.txt

    nothing to commit, working directory clean
    $ git merge master
    error: The following untracked working tree files would be overwritten by merge:
	    a.txt
    Please move or remove them before you can merge.
    Aborting
    $ git checkout master
    Switched to branch 'master'
    $ git checkout -
    Switched to branch 'side'
    $ git merge master
    Merge made by the 'recursive' strategy.
     a.txt | 1 +
     1 file changed, 1 insertion(+)
     create mode 100644 a.txt
    $

Andreas

-- 
"Totally trivial. Famous last words."
From: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@*.org>
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2010 07:29:21 -0800