previously committed file untracked prevent checking out an old tag/branch

Hi,

I had this situation:

we used to have a properties file in our project that was used by ant to build it. That file was tracked since the beginning of the project (several months ago).

let's call it: build.properties

(the project is on SVN and I'm the only one to use git)

Since everyone in the project has different directories paths I decided to untrack the file create a new template file and track it instead:

so I did something like this:

cp build.properties build.properties.template vim build.properties.template echo build.properties >> .git/info/exclude git rm --cached build.properties git add build.properties.template git commit -m "finally we don't overwrite it each other anymore"

Now I had to switch back to a tag that still have that file (build.properties) tracked to fix some issue there but when I try I get:

error: Untracked working tree file 'build.properties' would be overwritten by merge.

How would you handle a situation like this?

I only can think of doing a backup of my build.properties, delete it and check out the tag or I just delete it and rebuild it from the template later.

I did it but that made me think on it.

Actually what I really wanted here was the possibility to "locally track" that file...

something like git local <file>

that will have that file indexed by git so I can switch to branch that have that file without loosing it when I go back. furthermore that would allow me to keep versions of my local file even if I don't want to commit it. I could see if I accidentally modified it.

This could be useful, in my opinion.

Is there on git a feature to do something like that? Do you think it could be useful or do you see any possible problem about that?

Regards, Daniele