Re: Files different for me

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Feb 25, 2009, 17:55 UTC
Message-ID: <7vd4d62ygo.fsf@gitster.siamese.dyndns.org>
In-Reply-To: <450196A1AAAE4B42A00A8B27A59278E709E047DE@EXCHANGE.trad.tradestation.com>

"John Dlugosz" <JDlugosz@TradeStation.com> writes:

Show 5 quoted lines

> I'm working with a group, and using git for source code.  I need to
> change a couple files temporarily and just for me.  I thought, "that's
> easy", just don't stage them when I check in changes.  But, what do I do
> when I pull changes from others?  I think it will complain that I have
> unsaved changes.  What's the best way to do this?

[jc: Overlong lines wrapped]

This typically happens when a configuration file of some sort that *must* be different in each work tree is tracked.

"git pull" and "git merge" do not care when you have local changes to paths *and* the merge does not involve them, and errors out without touching any files in your tree when the merge needs to touch them. You can safely deal with your local changes after seeing such an error. This, and because such a file tend to be modified much less often than the real contents, means that:

 (1) you do not usually have to worry about this issue, and can keep your
     small local changes you do not mind losing around, and

 (2) when you have to recover, you can easily stash your changes away,
     redo the pull and unstash them.

If you want an "I do not have to think" solution, an easiest recipe to follow would be:

    $ git stash
    $ git pull
    ... potentially resolve conflicts and make a merge commit ...
    $ git stash pop

But as described above, stash/stash pop are superfluous for most of the time.