git merge, .gitignore, and silently overwriting untracked files

  Git silently overwrote an important untracked file for me today.  I 
have come up with the following transcript to reproduce the issue.

In a nutshell, if an untracked file is in .gitignore, a merge from a branch where the file was added will OVERWRITE the untracked file without warning.

This doesn't seem right.

What do others think?

Josh

-------------------------------

/s/testgitoverwrite $ mkdir aaa

/s/testgitoverwrite $ cd aaa

/s/testgitoverwrite/aaa $ echo abc > abc.txt

/s/testgitoverwrite/aaa $ ls -l total 1 -rw-r--r-- 1 Joshua Administ 4 Aug 16 23:10 abc.txt

/s/testgitoverwrite/aaa $ git init Initialized empty Git repository in s:/testgitoverwrite/aaa/.git/

/s/testgitoverwrite/aaa (master) $ git add abc.txt

/s/testgitoverwrite/aaa (master)
$ git commit -m "Added abc.txt"
[master (root-commit) 0e8bffb] Added abc.txt
  1 files changed, 1 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
  create mode 100644 abc.txt

/s/testgitoverwrite/aaa (master) $ cd ..

/s/testgitoverwrite $ git clone aaa bbb Cloning into bbb... done.

/s/testgitoverwrite $ cd bbb

/s/testgitoverwrite/bbb (master) $ ls -l total 1 -rw-r--r-- 1 Joshua Administ 4 Aug 16 23:10 abc.txt

/s/testgitoverwrite/bbb (master) $ echo "Important stuff" > important.txt

/s/testgitoverwrite/bbb (master) $ git add important.txt

/s/testgitoverwrite/bbb (master)
$ git commit -m "This file is SO important"
[master 2fe9ab6] This file is SO important
  1 files changed, 1 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
  create mode 100644 important.txt

/s/testgitoverwrite/bbb (master) $ cd ..

/s/testgitoverwrite $ cd aaa

/s/testgitoverwrite/aaa (master) $ echo "Local testing copy of important.txt" > important.txt

/s/testgitoverwrite/aaa (master) $ git status # On branch master # Untracked files: # (use "git add <file>..." to include in what will be committed) # # important.txt nothing added to commit but untracked files present (use "git add" to track)

/s/testgitoverwrite/aaa (master)
$ git pull ../bbb
remote: Counting objects: 4, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (2/2), done.
remote: Total 3 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0)
Unpacking objects: 100% (3/3), done.
 From ../bbb
  * branch            HEAD       -> FETCH_HEAD
Updating 0e8bffb..2fe9ab6
error: Untracked working tree file 'important.txt' would be overwritten 
by merge.  Aborting

/s/testgitoverwrite/aaa (master)
$ git pull --rebase ../bbb
 From ../bbb
  * branch            HEAD       -> FETCH_HEAD
First, rewinding head to replay your work on top of it...
error: Untracked working tree file 'important.txt' would be overwritten 
by merge.
could not detach HEAD

/s/testgitoverwrite/aaa (master) $ echo important.txt > .gitignore

/s/testgitoverwrite/aaa (master) $ git status # On branch master # Untracked files: # (use "git add <file>..." to include in what will be committed) # # .gitignore nothing added to commit but untracked files present (use "git add" to track)

/s/testgitoverwrite/aaa (master) $ cat important.txt Local testing copy of important.txt

/s/testgitoverwrite/aaa (master)
$ git pull ../bbb
 From ../bbb
  * branch            HEAD       -> FETCH_HEAD
Updating 0e8bffb..2fe9ab6
Fast-forward
  important.txt |    1 +
  1 files changed, 1 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
  create mode 100644 important.txt

/s/testgitoverwrite/aaa (master) $ cat important.txt Important stuff