Re: Feature Request: Ignore Tracked IDE files

From: Sean Allred <allred.sean@gmail.com>
Date: Mar 22, 2023, 13:55 UTC
Message-ID: <m0fs9w7upa.fsf@epic96565.epic.com>
In-Reply-To: <ACA3ECE1-689A-4BFD-A8EE-9CFF30128C1C@nearearth.aero>

Ward Hopeman <ward.hopeman@nearearth.aero> writes:

> [...] but I agree there appears to be an alternative available. I will
> pursue those configurations with the team.

Best of luck! Managing settings across a team is always an 'interesting' experience :-)

> I am curious if you think there is a class of files, under the
> paradigm I outlined; that need to be tracked initially but then
> ignored for regular workflows? Just curious at this point if this was
> discussed / considered previously.

It comes up every now and again, but in lieu of specific examples, it always 'seems' to be the wrong approach. The Notes section of git-update-index(1) talks about this a bit:

Show 12 quoted lines

> Users often try to use the assume-unchanged and skip-worktree bits to
> tell Git to ignore changes to files that are tracked. This does not
> work as expected, since Git may still check working tree files against
> the index when performing certain operations. In general, Git does not
> provide a way to ignore changes to tracked files, so alternate
> solutions are recommended.
>
> For example, if the file you want to change is some sort of config
> file, the repository can include a sample config file that can then be
> copied into the ignored name and modified. The repository can even
> include a script to treat the sample file as a template, modifying and
> copying it automatically.

-- Sean Allred