Re: git-rm isn't the inverse action of git-add

From: Christian Jaeger <christian@jaeger.mine.nu>
Date: Jul 2, 2007, 20:23 UTC
Message-ID: <46895EA4.5040803@jaeger.mine.nu>
In-Reply-To: <20070702194237.GN7730@nan92-1-81-57-214-146.fbx.proxad.net>

Yann Dirson wrote:

Show 11 quoted lines

> On Mon, Jul 02, 2007 at 08:09:37PM +0200, Christian Jaeger wrote:
>   
>> 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".)
>>     
>
> It is probably a matter of taste.  Personally, I am really upset by
> this behaviour that cvs, cogito, stgit and others share, which forces
> me to issue 2 commands to really delete a file from version control
> and from the filesystem.
>

It doesn't force you to issue 2 commands: the -f option to cg-rm unlinks the file for you. So you only have to type an additional "-f".

Yes it's probably (partly) a matter of taste: in my bash startup files I have mv aliased to mv -i and rm to rm -i, so that it asks me whether I'm sure to delete or overwrite a file. If I know in advance that I'm sure, I just type "rm -f $file", which then expands to "rm -i -f $file" where the -f overrides the -i. cg-rm -f just fits very well into this scheme (the only difference being that "cg-rm $file" doesn't explicitely ask me whether I also want the file to be unlinked). (BTW note that usually for removing a file I use a "trash" (or shorter alias "tra") command, which moves it to a trash can instead of deleting; so I use "tra $file" by default, and only for big files or when I'm sure I immediately want to delete them, I use rm, and then if the paths are clear I add the -f flag, if not (like globbing involved), I don't add the -f and thus am asked for confirmation.)

If I could alias the git-rm command so that the default action is the reverse of git-add and adding an -f flag removes it from disk, that would be fine for me.

> Do you really need to undo an add more often than you need to remove a
> file from version-control ?  It may be worth, however, to make things
> easier.  Maybe "git add --undo foo" would be a solution ?

This doesn't sound very intuitive to me (and I couldn't fix it with an alias).

I don't per se require undo actions. I just don't understand why git-rm refuses to remove the file from the index, even if I didn't commit it. The index is just an intermediate record of the changes in my understandings, and the rm action would also be intermediate until it's being committed. And a non-committed action being deleted shouldn't need a special confirmation from me, especially not one which is consisting of a combination of two flags (of which one is a destructive one).

Christian.