threads / discuss / 30864

git bisect/checkout and changes to .gitignore

Subject: git bisect/checkout and changes to .gitignore

## tl;dr

4 messages between Jun 22, 2012 and Jun 22, 2012.

replies: 3people: 3as markdown or json

Chris Angelico· Jun 22, 2012, 07:51 UTC · lore

Greetings! I'm not certain if this list or the git-users group is more appropriate; my apologies if I've picked wrong.

At my workplace we use git to manage all of our source code. Every now and then, we decide that some particular file oughtn't to be git-managed, and add it into .gitignore and remove it from the repository (for instance, configuration files that become per-developer).

Is there a way to checkout an old version of the repository (before the file was added to .gitignore), then return to the current state, without destroying these sorts of files? Currently, checking out the old version quietly "takes control" of the file, and then checking out a newer one deletes it.

I've read through the man pages for 'git checkout' and 'gitignore' and searched the one for 'git config' (it's a little large to read all of), without seeing an option to preserve files on checkout. Is there a way to do this, and if so, where can I find it?

Thanks in advance!

Chris Angelico

Johannes Sixt· Jun 22, 2012, 10:31 UTC · re: Chris Angelico · lore

Re: git bisect/checkout and changes to .gitignore

Am 6/22/2012 9:51, schrieb Chris Angelico:

Show 16 quoted lines

> At my workplace we use git to manage all of our source code. Every now
> and then, we decide that some particular file oughtn't to be
> git-managed, and add it into .gitignore and remove it from the
> repository (for instance, configuration files that become
> per-developer).
> 
> Is there a way to checkout an old version of the repository (before
> the file was added to .gitignore), then return to the current state,
> without destroying these sorts of files? Currently, checking out the
> old version quietly "takes control" of the file, and then checking out
> a newer one deletes it.
> 
> I've read through the man pages for 'git checkout' and 'gitignore' and
> searched the one for 'git config' (it's a little large to read all
> of), without seeing an option to preserve files on checkout. Is there
> a way to do this, and if so, where can I find it?

Files mentioned in .gitignore are considered garbage. But your file is precious, hence, you should not list it in .gitignore.

Here is a thread that is worthwhile to read. I posted a patch

http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/185724/focus=185733

but it was dismissed, see

http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/185724/focus=185746

-- Hannes

Chris Angelico· Jun 22, 2012, 12:07 UTC · re: Johannes Sixt · lore

Re: git bisect/checkout and changes to .gitignore

On Fri, Jun 22, 2012 at 8:31 PM, Johannes Sixt <j.sixt@viscovery.net> wrote:

> Files mentioned in .gitignore are considered garbage. But your file is
> precious, hence, you should not list it in .gitignore.

An important distinction! Thanks for the thread pointer.

The --no-overwrite-ignore flag is part of what I want. It at least gives protection against accidentally losing things (on Wednesday, I unwittingly disposed of several large binary files, and didn't even know about it until a chance discovery of directory size). Is there a way to specify that this flag always be used, even when the checkout doesn't happen on the command line but through (eg) git bisect?

Chris Angelico

Junio C Hamano· Jun 22, 2012, 17:42 UTC · re: Johannes Sixt · lore

Re: git bisect/checkout and changes to .gitignore

Johannes Sixt <j.sixt@viscovery.net> writes:

Show 7 quoted lines

> Here is a thread that is worthwhile to read. I posted a patch
>
> http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/185724/focus=185733
>
> but it was dismissed, see
>
> http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/185724/focus=185746

Thanks.

Two thoughts and a half.

 - For people who do not want to read the above, the patch in the
   former was not a change to the code, but was a demonstration to
   exploit a bug in .git/ignore/exclude handling.

 - The latter message above outlined a future direction to properly
   handle "ignored" vs "precious" distinction.

 - There probably are other "here is a way forward" messages in the
   list archive whose visions haven't been materialized. Is anybody
   collecting these? I suspect that such a collection would be far
   more useful than a typical bug tracker that nobody looks at.