Re: Problems switching branches
- From
- Maaartin-1 <grajcar1@seznam.cz>
- Date
- Nov 5, 2010, 06:36 UTC
- Message-ID
- <4CD3A5D9.6070802@seznam.cz>
- In-Reply-To
- <AANLkTikK93Jt+dAkpp6K-hQEo6D67q5OKJSLs+g0YL4y@mail.gmail.com>
On 10-11-04 15:39, Nguyen Thai Ngoc Duy wrote:
Show 26 quoted lines
> On Thu, Nov 4, 2010 at 7:23 AM, Maaartin <grajcar1@seznam.cz> wrote: >> Maaartin <grajcar1 <at> seznam.cz> writes: >> >>> >>> I sometimes run in a problem similar to >>> http://kerneltrap.org/mailarchive/git/2008/10/15/3667644/thread >>> There are some ignored files which I want neither track nor throw away; I'm >> just >>> happy to have them and keep them out of version control. >>> >>> Unfortunately, there weren't ignored in the old branch. I'd be quite happy >> with >>> non-destructive switching like "checkout everything what doesn't overwrite an >>> untracked file", so I would end in the old branch with a dirty working tree. >> Is >>> it possible? >> >> No answer? > > Which means nobody is interested in. Well, not really. > > I also get irritated by a similar situation, where the untracked files > have the same content as the to-be-checked-out files. I have been > tempted (but never got around) to make git compare the in-index > content and the untracked file, if it's the same, no need to abort the > checkout process.
I was asked to provide a working example of the happening, but I haven't managed to reproduce it yet. However, it's not very rare (it just never happen when I need it).
> But your approach may be better. Yes, I think it's possible. Any > suggestion for checkout's new argument? --no-overwrite-untracked seems > too long.
I would go even further: a switch called "ignorant" or "lenient" allowing to always switch branches in a non-destructible way. All files normally causing abort would be left unmodified, so you could do git checkout --ignorant forth; git checkout back and would (assuming you started in branch "back") land in the original state without loosing anything. Of course, this means, that the ignorant checkout doesn't lead you into a clean state, but that's why I'd like to use a switch instead of making it the default. :)
I may be talking non-sense as I'm quite inexperienced user, however I'd love an easier way for switching branches. Quite often, I'd like to put a modified file onto a different branch. This sounds probably strange, but my work is really quite chaotic in this respect at the moment and I'd like to organize it better by using a couple of (quite similar) branches (with a lifespan of a few days at most).