From: Christian Jaeger <christian@jaeger.mine.nu>
Date: Mon, 02 Jul 2007 18:09:37 GMT
Subject: git-rm isn't the inverse action of git-add
Message-ID: <46893F61.5060401@jaeger.mine.nu>

Hello

I'm coming from cogito. There you can run:

  cg-add $file ; cg-rm $file

and everything is as before; it adds the file to the directory
index/cache, and just removes it again from the latter.

Whereas with git,

  git-add $file; git-rm $file

is giving the error

  error: '..file..' has changes staged in the index (hint: try -f)

And sure enough, git rm -f $file will remove the file from the index,
but also unlink it from the directory. (Ok, I did remember that cogito's
-f option is unlinking the file, so I was cautious and didn't try it on
an important file, but still...)

Turns out that

  git rm  -f --cached $file

will do the same action as cg-rm $file.

Why so complicated? Why not just make git-rm without options behave like
cg-rm? (Or at the very least, I'd change the hint to say "try -f --cached".)

Christian.