Re: My first git success [not quite]

Linus Torvalds wrote:

I see I still have a problem: my mental model of how git works is still wrong.

I used 'git-checkout -b test' to create a disposable place to test the patch I was given.

Okay, making sure I'm now sitting in 'test', I apply the patch to foo.c and do my testing.

Now, intending to delete my 'test' branch, I do git-checkout master. My mental model predicts that 'master' should still be identical to 'origin' because I did the patching in 'test'. Am I right so far?

The problem I see is that, after switching back to 'master', foo.c is the patched version, not your original version. I figured that the git-checkout would overwrite any changes I made to foo.c, but that doesn't seem to be the case. To get your original version back I had to delete foo.c and do a git-checkout foo.c (or git-checkout -f master).

So, I clearly don't understand what git-checkout does. It doesn't seem to touch the already-checked-out sources at all, which is what I would expect it to do.

Can someone hit me with the clue-stick here?  Thanks!