why is merging with unstaged changes allowed when rebasing is not?

Isn't it inconsistent that I can merge with unstaged changes in my work-tree but not rebase? I agree that both should fail if the operation would have to touch the file which has unstaged changes. But if not - why don't we allow the rebase? (Is it just because we technically do a "git reset --hard" during the rebase which fails on unstaged changes?). Here is how tried it out:

git init touch a b git add a b git commit -m initial echo "a-master" >> a git commit -a -m "modified a on master" git checkout -b side HEAD~1 touch c git add c git commit -m "added c on side" echo "b-side" >> b # git rebase master -> would fail complaining about unstaged changes # git merge master -> would not fail

Even a 'git checkout master; git cherry-pick side' works well (but updates the wrong branch)

Ciao
  Chris