Subject: Re: Can't git stash after using git add -N

From: Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 15 Mar 2016 21:51:35 -0700

Josh Triplett <[email-masked]> writes:

> As far as I can tell, if I run "git add -N" on a file, and then commit
> without adding the file contents, it gets committed as an empty file.

Is that true?  Git once worked like that in earlier days, but I
think write-tree (hence commit) would simply ignore intent-to-add
entries from its resulting tree.

> Could stash save it exactly as if I'd done "git add" of an empty file at
> that path and then filled in the contents without adding them?

As I said, there is no space for a tree object to say "this one
records an empty blob but it actually was an intent-to-add entry"
and "this other one records an empty blob and it indeed is an empty
blob".  So "stash pop" (or "stash apply") would fundamentally be
unable to resurrect the exact state after "add -N".

>> "git rm --cached" the path and then running "stash save" would be a
>> workaround, but then you'd probably need to use "--untracked" hack
>> when you run "stash save" if you are stashing because you are going
>> to do something to the same path in the cleaned-up working tree.
>
> Right; I do specifically want to save the working-tree files.

Then "git add" that path before "stash save" would probably be a
better workaround.