Re: git-add + git-reset --hard = Arrrggh!

From: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
Date: May 17, 2006, 14:43 UTC
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.64.0605170735540.10823@g5.osdl.org>
In-Reply-To: <20060517094526.GA8563@spearce.org>

On Wed, 17 May 2006, Shawn Pearce wrote:

Show 5 quoted lines

> 
> Oh, and I totally agree with that discussion about GIT not clobbering
> files the user is working on which the user can't easily recover.
> I just wish recovery from the above stupidity didn't require going
> through .git/objects looking for the newest file.  :-)

It doesn't.

Just do "git fsck-objects". It should have said

	dangling blob <sha1>

and you can just do

	git cat-file blob <sha1> > missing-file-name

and you're done.

That said, I think we should make everybody very aware of just how a _dangerous_ operation "git reset --hard" is. It does delete your work. On purpose. The fact that you can sometimes get it back doesn't change anything.

(And I say "sometimes", because you'll obviously have lost all the modifications that are only in your working tree - both to any added files and to any old-time files. That's the _point_ of it, after all).

The default for "git reset" is to _not_ do any modifications in the working tree. And there's a reason that's a default ;)

			Linus