Am able to delete a file with no trace in the log

We just had this come up. A file was accidentally removed during a merge operation, and we could find no clue in the gitk and git log output as to which change the deletion occurred in. We found the original file addition in a change; but no other mention of this file.

This seems like a bug. The log should show the file being deleted.

This is pretty easy to reproduce. Just run the script below. Here, pretend "c" is the central repo to which two users are pushing/ pulling. The users are using repositories r1 and r2.

# create and init repos md r1 md r2 md c cd c git init --bare cd .. cd r1 && git init && cd .. cd r2 && git init && cd ..

# create a file to conflict later cd r1 echo hello > a.txt git add . git commit -m "add file" git push ../c master

# sync other repo cd ../r2 git pull ../c

# make conflicting change echo helloworld > a.txt git commit -a -m "change file in r2"

# and add a file echo bye > b.txt git add . git commit -m "add file b" git push ../c

# Meanwhile, r1 has been working cd ../r1 echo hellogit > a.txt git commit -a -m "change file in r1" git pull ../c

# edit a.txt to resolve merge vi a.txt

# User in r1 erroneously thinks "ooh, I didn't edit b.txt, I don't want that in my commit!" # This is especially easy to do in git gui. That's what our user did. # Or, the user could legitimately remove the file as part of the merge. Probably # they should git rm, but our user didn't. git reset HEAD b.txt

# But he thinks, "I did merge a.txt" git add a.txt git commit -m "Merged" git push ../c

# Now user in r2 wants to pull r1's changes cd ../r2 git pull ../c

# File b.txt deleted! Woah! How did that happen? # gitk and git log show nothing about the deletion. # There seems to be no evidence about who, how, why, or when the file got deleted. # So it's hard to track down which user mis-used the system and educate them.

Cheers, Graham Perks.