Re: Bug with .gitignore and branch switching

[Duy Nguyen <pclouds@gmail.com>]

On Sat, Mar 18, 2017 at 5:02 AM, Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com> wrote:
> Junio C Hamano wrote:
>
>> There is no "untracked but precious" vs "untracked and expendable"
>> difference in the current system.  An untracked file that matches
>> patterns listed in .gitignore is treated as the latter.
> [...]
>> We've discussed the lack of "untracked but precious" class a few
>> times on the list in the past, but I do not recall the topic came up
>> in the recent past.  It perhaps is because nobody found that class
>> useful enough so far.
>
> The most recent example I can find is 2010:
> http://public-inbox.org/git/4C6A1C5B.4030304@workspacewhiz.com/.
>
> It also came up in 2007:
> http://public-inbox.org/git/C0E9F681E68D48EB8989022D11FEE3D1@ntdev.corp.microsoft.com/
> Earlier in that year it even made the "What's not in 1.5.2" list.
> http://public-inbox.org/git/11793556383977-git-send-email-junkio@cox.net/
>
> Perhaps those references could be a useful starting point for an
> interested person's thinking.

I think I made it work in 2014 [1] using new "precious" attribute, but
never submitted it, probably because I was worried about the
interaction with untracked cache (adding .gitattributes as a new
dependency) though maybe we can avoid that by always checking for
preciousness after all the tree walking/filtering is done, either with
or without untracked cache. But I never addressed that loose end. Then
again, it could also be another useful starting point for interested
person's thinking ;-)

[1] https://github.com/pclouds/git/commit/0e7f7afa1879b055369ebd3f1224311c43c8a32b
-- 
Duy