Re: [PATCH v1 1/1] git stash needing mkdir deletes untracked file

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Aug 15, 2023, 18:03 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqcyzoji7u.fsf@gitster.g>
In-Reply-To: <9f76de24-d337-ed41-fb81-888dba0b1656@gmail.com>

Phillip Wood <phillip.wood123@gmail.com> writes:

> I don't think we should be treating "git stash" as a special case here
> - commands like "git checkout" should not be removing untracked files
> unprompted either.

Yeah, I tend to agree. "git checkout branch path" should overwrite a leftover "path" in the working tree in response to such an explicit request, and that should equally apply for a request with pathspec e.g. "git checkout branch .", as the latter is also an explicit "please check out all paths out of the tree-ish of the branch".

But "git checkout branch" in a working tree with untracked "path" should not lose it if "branch" has it as a tracked file.

> I think stopping and telling the user that the file would be
> overwritten as we do in other cases would be better.

Yup, that is what we have done and probably one of the design choices that made us successful.

Show 7 quoted lines

>> Reading the different reports and including own experience,
>> I still think that a directory called ".deleted-by-user"
>> or ".wastebin" or something in that style is a good idea.
>
> I can see an argument for being able to opt-in to that for "git
> restore" and "git reset --hard" but that is a different problem to the
> one here.

Yeah, I tend to agree. If anything, such a trash directory should be kept out-of-line, not inside the working tree. Perhaps in $HOME or somewhere, and not necessarily tied to the use of Git, as the way a file gets "deleted by user" is not necessarily limited to the use of Git.