Re: [RFC PATCH] Introduce "precious" file concept

From: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab@gmail.com>
Date: Nov 12, 2018, 12:45 UTC
Message-ID: <87in1231o2.fsf@evledraar.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <xmqqk1li1thy.fsf@gitster-ct.c.googlers.com>

On Mon, Nov 12 2018, Junio C Hamano wrote:

Show 17 quoted lines

> Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> What I'd add to your list is:
>>
>> * Some projects (I've seen this in the wild) add e.g. *.mp3 or whatever
>>   else usually doesn't belong in the repo as a "soft ignore". This is
>>   something we've never recommended, but have implicitly supported since
>>   the only caveats are a) you need a one-off "git add -f" and then
>>   they're tracked b) them being missing from "status" before being
>>   tracked c) the issue under discussion here.
>
> Or only selected "*.o" (vendor supplied binary blob) kept tracked
> while everything else is built from the source.
>
> I do not know who you are referring to "we" in your sentence, but as
> far as I am concerned, it has been and still is a BCP recommendation
> on this list to deal with a case like that.

I mean that this use-case of having a "soft" ignore by carrying it across the "git add" barrier with a one-off "-f" isn't something explicitly documented, and apparently not something many expect. I.e. you / Matthieu have mentioned .gitignore in the past for only-generated *.o use-case.

But it also does get used for "mostly we don't want this file, but sometimes we do" use-case, so that's something we need to deal with in practice. Like many workflows in git it's not something that was forseen or intended, but does happen in the wild.