Re: git stash deletes/drops changes of

From: Phil Hord <phil.hord@gmail.com>
Date: May 24, 2013, 15:25 UTC
Message-ID: <CABURp0rBzH9=VdW0Y4Bv1tfbSzZ3dwismwgZ7zCwrXC6nDRSJQ@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <7v4ndtcmh0.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>

On Thu, May 23, 2013 at 7:20 PM, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:

Show 19 quoted lines

> Thomas Rast <trast@inf.ethz.ch> writes:
>
>>> What are the workflows that are helped if we had such a bit?  If
>>> we need to support them, I think you need a real --ignore-changes
>>> bit, not an abuse of --assume-unchanged.
>>
>> I gather -- from #git -- that it's mostly used for config files, which
>> have an annoying habit of being different from the repository.
>>
>> Which is wrong, really.  But we still claim that --assume-unchanged is a
>> solution to it in git-update-index(1).
>
> That is doubly wrong, then ;-)
>
> How would we want to proceed from here?  The obvious first step
> would be to fix the documentation, but then what is next?
>
> Thinking aloud, ignoring that "Which is wrong, really" part in your
> message and assuming that we do want to support --ignore-changes....

The wording of --ignore-changes suffers the same lack of clarity that --assume-unchanged does.

  --assume-unchanged : These changes are ephemeral

  --ignore-changes : These changes are precious but not to be committed

What's better? --sequester is probably too obscure. Maybe --hold. Or --silence. Or --shut-up.

Does this mean a new class of files for git-status? Added, changed, untracked, ignored and held?

I wonder if there is a use case for such a switch to be applied to content rather than files. Suppose I want to --hold these changes, but further changes to the same files should be fair game? That's probably an insane situation for some future itch and not this one. Anyway, it sounds like it would involve the index or maybe a 2nd index.

Phil