Overwriting untracked working tree files (when identical)

Overwriting untracked working tree files (when identical)

[Asheesh Laroia]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: TEXT/PLAIN, Size: 576 bytes --]

I was using git earlier today and got the familiar error:

 	"Untracked working tree file 'filename’ would be overwritten by merge"

As it happens, I know that filename in my local filesystem and filename in 
the remote git branch have the same contents.

Would it make sense for git to check for this possibility, and if the 
working tree file is the same as the file being merged in with that 
filename, allow the overwrite?

(I received the message with "git pull," so I imagine it was emitted by 
the recursive merge driver.)

-- Asheesh.

-- 
Reply hazy, ask again later.

Re: Overwriting untracked working tree files (when identical)

[Andreas Ericsson]

Asheesh Laroia wrote:
> I was using git earlier today and got the familiar error:
> 
>     "Untracked working tree file 'filename’ would be overwritten by merge"
> 
> As it happens, I know that filename in my local filesystem and filename 
> in the remote git branch have the same contents.
> 
> Would it make sense for git to check for this possibility, and if the 
> working tree file is the same as the file being merged in with that 
> filename, allow the overwrite?
> 

That depends. git uses the work-tree to merge things. If one file is the
same as that about to be written, it *might* make sense to clobber it,
but what if it's identical to the expected merge-result? Git can't know
that, but it's almost certainly a much saner approach than the other
case, where the merge can go wahoonie-shaped at a later stage and thus
require conflict resolution (which might well end up with the user
getting fed up and doing "git reset --hard" to start over). For such
cases, the file would appear to disappear, and that's a bad thing.

Overall, I think it's best if this is left as-is. The code would be too
complex for the gain it provides.

-- 
Andreas Ericsson                   andreas.ericsson@op5.se
OP5 AB                             www.op5.se
Tel: +46 8-230225                  Fax: +46 8-230231