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

Phillip Wood [off-list ref] 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.

quoted

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.