avoiding committing personal cruft

["James Sadler" <freshtonic@gmail.com>]

I couldn't think of a better subject, so bear with me while I explain.

Let's say I am contributing to some upstream project, and I am hacking on it
inside my local repo's master branch.  Let's also say that I enjoy
using my favourite IDE
which creates its own project files and whatnot, and I don't want to
commit that stuff with the
rest of the project code.  It has no place being accidentally
pushed/pulled upstream.  It's
my personal cruft, hence the subject line.

However, I *do* want to version control my personal cruft, and I can
do that on a separate
branch.  But I want the content of that other branch to exist in the
working tree alongside my
checkout of master.

My current solution basically involves versioning the IDE files on
another branch (named ide-branch),
and using 'git checkout ide-branch .' to overlay the files on top of
the currently checked-out branch (master).

The ide-branch has nothing in it except the cruft from the IDE and the
paths leading up to that cruft.
The master branch has a .gitignore that ignores the IDE files so I
won't end up polluting master by accident.

It's a manageable solution for now.  I tend to think of it
conceptually as 'layering' two branches: I want the
content of both present in the working tree.

I was just wondering if anyone else has tried something similar.


 James.



-- 
Calvin Coolidge  - "I have never been hurt by what I have not said."