From: Mark Levedahl <mlevedahl@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 09 Oct 2007 00:58:06 GMT
Subject: bug? - git-checkout treeish paths ignores deleted files
Message-ID: <470AD21E.6070906@gmail.com>

Shouldn't   "git checkout topic path"  make the directory tree rooted at 
path identical to what is on branch topic? It doesn't.

Try this:

mkdir test
cd test
git init
touch a b
git add a b
git commit -m 'base'
git checkout -b topic
git rm a
git commit -m 'removed a'
git checkout master
git checkout topic .

...and the result is...
ls
a   b

instead of
b

Mark