GIT: How to keep ignored files when switching branches?

Question

I have an App.Local.config file which each developer has their own settings in. I do not want this file checked versioned in the GIT repo as every time it would be overwritten by another developers changes.

So I deleted the file from the repo and added it to the ignore file. But now when developers switch branches, App.Local.config is deleted from their local filesystem.

Ultimately what i would like is:

1. new dev clones repo, gets a starting version of App.Local.config
2. dev makes changes to App.Local.config. Git will ignore changes and not stage/checkin
3. dev switches branches, changes to App.Local.config will not be lost and file is not deleted.

How can I do that?

Thanks.

Answer 1

What probably happened is that you removed the file from your workspace but not from the index. If you did that git thinks that removing this file is a change and it will remove it from then on.

The way to go is to remove the file you don't want to track anymore from the index with

git rm --cached App.Local.config

and then add that file to the .gitignore Doing that you will have no more problems with the file

Answer 2

Seems like this file was in index once. So its deletion is a change. You can add it to .gitignore or .git/info/exclude and then just recreate it on each developers machine.

Answer 3

您应该在您正在工作的分支中使用git rm --cached App.Local.config ，但也应该在要切换到的分支中使用它，否则当您切换回您工作的分支时，您将丢失App.Local.config 。你只在该分支中使用git rm --cached App.Local.config 。