From: Andreas Ericsson Date: Mon, 01 Dec 2008 09:28:37 GMT Subject: Re: Overwriting untracked working tree files (when identical) Message-ID: <4933AE45.4050400@op5.se> In-Reply-To: Asheesh Laroia wrote: > I was using git earlier today and got the familiar error: > > "Untracked working tree file 'filename’ would be overwritten by merge" > > As it happens, I know that filename in my local filesystem and filename > in the remote git branch have the same contents. > > Would it make sense for git to check for this possibility, and if the > working tree file is the same as the file being merged in with that > filename, allow the overwrite? > That depends. git uses the work-tree to merge things. If one file is the same as that about to be written, it *might* make sense to clobber it, but what if it's identical to the expected merge-result? Git can't know that, but it's almost certainly a much saner approach than the other case, where the merge can go wahoonie-shaped at a later stage and thus require conflict resolution (which might well end up with the user getting fed up and doing "git reset --hard" to start over). For such cases, the file would appear to disappear, and that's a bad thing. Overall, I think it's best if this is left as-is. The code would be too complex for the gain it provides. -- Andreas Ericsson andreas.ericsson@op5.se OP5 AB www.op5.se Tel: +46 8-230225 Fax: +46 8-230231