Re: Suggestion: make git checkout safer

[Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>]

Jeff King <peff@peff.net> writes:

> If we want to introduce more safety here, I'd be inclined to perform the
> operation by default, but give a better escape hatch. For example, by
> creating a loose object for any file we're about to overwrite, and
> possibly writing an entry into a log.

Can we borrow the ideas from other tools that have similar
characteristics, I wonder.

"git checkout $paths" (and you can give "." for $paths to mean
"everything") is akin to "cp -R $elsewhere/$path ." to restore the
working tree copies from somewhere else.

"Ouch, 'git checkout .'  overwrote what was in my working tree" is
exactly the same kind of confusion as "I ran 'cp -r ../saved .' and
it overwrote everything".  As you said in your initial response,
that is what the command is meant for.

What does that similar command outside world, "cp", have for "more
safety"?  'cp -i' asks if the user wants to overwrite a file for
each path; perhaps a behaviour similar to that was the original
poster wanted to see?