# first para of man gitignore should refer to 'git rm --cached' 6 messages from 2010-11-07 to 2010-11-09. Participants: Sitaram Chamarty, Ramkumar Ramachandra, Junio C Hamano, Jonathan Nieder. Thread: https://gitlist.dev/t/25663 ## Sitaram Chamarty, 2010-11-07 18:37 Subject: first para of man gitignore should refer to 'git rm --cached' Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/AANLkTim%3DQCcJDb0600Je-jePvXSXfFMe7FAQ0WMhZKn7%40mail.gmail.com ``` It's an FAQ that "why doesn't my gitignore work" when the files in question had already been added earlier, usually in error. The most common remedy, I believe, is "git rm --cached" followed by a commit. "update-index" does not seem to be the right answer. Thoughts? -- Sitaram ``` ## Ramkumar Ramachandra, 2010-11-07 19:14 Subject: Re: first para of man gitignore should refer to 'git rm --cached' Message-ID: <20101107191425.GA32302@kytes> URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/20101107191425.GA32302%40kytes In-Reply-To: ``` Hi Sitaram, Sitaram Chamarty writes: > It's an FAQ that "why doesn't my gitignore work" when the files in > question had already been added earlier, usually in error. The most > common remedy, I believe, is "git rm --cached" followed by a commit. Er, no. The documentation says "in order to ignore uncommitted changes in already tracked files". `git rm --cached` removes the file from the index altogether- when the change is committed, Git will actually stop tracking it. > "update-index" does not seem to be the right answer. >From the update-index documentation assume-unchanged section, "This option can be also used as a coarse file-level mechanism to ignore uncommitted changes in tracked files (akin to what .gitignore does for untracked files)". It seems to be right. -- Ram ``` ## Sitaram Chamarty, 2010-11-08 04:46 Subject: Re: first para of man gitignore should refer to 'git rm --cached' Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/AANLkTinznLY3M4z7k-WeeFhGSR1xWHXj_zOrwMvZDfLQ%40mail.gmail.com In-Reply-To: <20101107191425.GA32302@kytes> ``` On Mon, Nov 8, 2010 at 12:44 AM, Ramkumar Ramachandra wrote: > Hi Sitaram, > > Sitaram Chamarty writes: >> It's an FAQ that "why doesn't my gitignore work" when the files in >> question had already been added earlier, usually in error.  The most >> common remedy, I believe, is "git rm --cached" followed by a commit. > > Er, no. The documentation says "in order to ignore uncommitted changes > in already tracked files". `git rm --cached` removes the file from the > index altogether- when the change is committed, Git will actually stop > tracking it. I agree. I'm just saying that ignoring uncommitted changes to already tracked files is *not* the most common question I see when it comes to gitignore, and am asking if it is worth putting what I believe is the real FAQ in the first para, and move the assume-unchanged stuff further down the page. Sorry if I didn't say that clearly enough before. ``` ## Junio C Hamano, 2010-11-08 20:17 Subject: Re: first para of man gitignore should refer to 'git rm --cached' Message-ID: <7vbp5zpo2d.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org> URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/7vbp5zpo2d.fsf%40alter.siamese.dyndns.org In-Reply-To: ``` Sitaram Chamarty writes: > I'm just saying that ignoring uncommitted changes to already tracked > files is *not* the most common question I see when it comes to > gitignore,... I actually think it is much more commonly asked around here than "I added paths that I do not want by mistake and I mistakenly thought adding it to gitignore would make git forget it". ``` ## Sitaram Chamarty, 2010-11-09 19:20 Subject: Re: first para of man gitignore should refer to 'git rm --cached' Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/AANLkTimwNtih94GENv%3DRqTCYtTWC7koLV_%3DWTX-B3MDu%40mail.gmail.com In-Reply-To: <7vbp5zpo2d.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org> ``` On Tue, Nov 9, 2010 at 1:47 AM, Junio C Hamano wrote: > Sitaram Chamarty writes: > >> I'm just saying that ignoring uncommitted changes to already tracked >> files is *not* the most common question I see when it comes to >> gitignore,... > > I actually think it is much more commonly asked around here than "I added > paths that I do not want by mistake and I mistakenly thought adding it to > gitignore would make git forget it". I'm surprised. That is something only advanced users are likely to need, while the one I mentioned would appear to be a much more neophyte mistake. Perhaps it's the difference between the folks that come to #git and those that come to the mailing list. But case closed I guess... ``` ## Jonathan Nieder, 2010-11-09 19:29 Subject: Re: first para of man gitignore should refer to 'git rm --cached' Message-ID: <20101109192913.GA21320@burratino> URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/20101109192913.GA21320%40burratino In-Reply-To: ``` Sitaram Chamarty wrote: > Perhaps it's the difference between the folks that come to #git and > those that come to the mailing list. > > But case closed I guess... Case closed? I thought you were suggesting an enhancement to the manual page, to answer the following question (frequently asked or not): If git is already tracking a file, how can I tell git it is not supposed to be tracked any more? And perhaps a bonus question: What will happen when I switch between revisions in which the file is tracked and not tracked? I think at least an EXAMPLES section explaining this would be would be nice. ```