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| author |  Petr Baudis <pasky@suse.cz> | 2008-07-18 16:11:07 +0200 |
|---|---|---|
| committer |  Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> | 2008-07-19 11:17:43 -0700 |
| commit | 6259ac6628477aa5ebde9bd9e8daaeecca2a74ae (patch) | |
| tree | 3d0480c01add01bf5fe8be392ec8a52a2eb075c8 | |
| parent | Documentation/git-submodule.txt: Further clarify the description (diff) | |
| download | tgif-6259ac6628477aa5ebde9bd9e8daaeecca2a74ae.tar.xz | |
Documentation: How to ignore local changes in tracked files
This patch explains more carefully that `.gitignore` concerns only
untracked files and refers the reader to
git update-index --assume-unchanged
in the need of ignoring uncommitted changes in already tracked files.
The description of this option is lifted to a more "porcelainish"
level and explains the caveats of this usecase.
Whether feasible or not, I believe adding this functionality to
the porcelain is out of the scope of this patch. (And I personally
think that referring to the plumbing in the case of such a special
usage is fine.)
This is currently probably one of the top FAQs at #git and the
--assume-unchanged switch is not widely known; gitignore(5) is the first
place where people are likely to look for it.
Signed-off-by: Petr Baudis <pasky@suse.cz>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/git-update-index.txt | 10 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/gitignore.txt | 11 |
2 files changed, 18 insertions, 3 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/git-update-index.txt b/Documentation/git-update-index.txt index a91fd214d2..6b930bc163 100644 --- a/Documentation/git-update-index.txt +++ b/Documentation/git-update-index.txt @@ -88,6 +88,16 @@ OPTIONS sometimes helpful when working with a big project on a filesystem that has very slow lstat(2) system call (e.g. cifs). ++ +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). +You should remember that an explicit 'git add' operation will +still cause the file to be refreshed from the working tree. +Git will fail (gracefully) in case it needs to modify this file +in the index e.g. when merging in a commit; +thus, in case the assumed-untracked file is changed upstream, +you will need to handle the situation manually. -g:: --again:: diff --git a/Documentation/gitignore.txt b/Documentation/gitignore.txt index fc0efd8ec8..59321a2e82 100644 --- a/Documentation/gitignore.txt +++ b/Documentation/gitignore.txt @@ -13,9 +13,14 @@ DESCRIPTION ----------- A `gitignore` file specifies intentionally untracked files that -git should ignore. Each line in a `gitignore` file specifies a -pattern. - +git should ignore. +Note that all the `gitignore` files really concern only files +that are not already tracked by git; +in order to ignore uncommitted changes in already tracked files, +please refer to the 'git update-index --assume-unchanged' +documentation. + +Each line in a `gitignore` file specifies a pattern. When deciding whether to ignore a path, git normally checks `gitignore` patterns from multiple sources, with the following order of precedence, from highest to lowest (within one level of |