Had a brief look at the code. builtin/rebase.c is using rebase_head helper function defined in rebase.c/h to do a checkout. builtin/checkout.c does not use the rebase_head helper function. I would expect both to use the same code defined in checkout.c/h, but there is no such file. On Sun, Sep 5, 2021 at 9:44 AM Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > > On Sat, Sep 04 2021, Elijah Newren wrote: > > > On Sat, Sep 4, 2021 at 3:19 AM Jeff King <peff@xxxxxxxx> wrote: > >> > >> On Sat, Sep 04, 2021 at 11:51:19AM +0200, Fedor Biryukov wrote: > >> > >> > There is no way this could be the intended behavior, but the good news > >> > is that I cannot reproduce it... > >> > Looks like it occurs only in one git version (2.31.0.windows.1, IIRC). > >> > And it does not occur in the latest git version: git version 2.33.0.windows.2. > >> > >> I think it is a bug, and it seems to reproduce easily for me (with both > >> the current tip of master, and with v2.33.0). Here's the recipe you > >> showed, with a little debugging at the end: > >> > >> set -x > >> git init repo > >> cd repo > >> git commit -m base --allow-empty > >> git checkout -b feat > >> echo feat >readme.txt > >> git add readme.txt > >> git commit -m txt=feat > >> git checkout main > >> echo precious >readme.txt > >> > >> cat readme.txt > >> git checkout feat > >> cat readme.txt > >> git rebase main feat > >> cat readme.txt > >> > >> This produces: > >> > >> + cat readme.txt > >> precious > >> + git checkout feat > >> error: The following untracked working tree files would be overwritten by checkout: > >> readme.txt > >> Please move or remove them before you switch branches. > >> Aborting > >> + cat readme.txt > >> precious > >> + git rebase main feat > >> Current branch feat is up to date. > >> + cat readme.txt > >> feat > >> > >> So git-checkout was not willing to overwrite the untracked content, but > >> rebase was happy to obliterate it. > >> > >> It does the right thing in very old versions. Bisecting, it looks like > >> the problem arrived in 5541bd5b8f (rebase: default to using the builtin > >> rebase, 2018-08-08). So the bug is in the conversion from the legacy > >> shell script to C (which makes sense; the shell version was just calling > >> "git checkout", which we know does the right thing). > >> > >> -Peff > > > > Turns out this is quite a mess. It's also related to the "don't > > remove empty working directories" discussion we had earlier this > > week[1], because we assumed all relevant codepaths correctly avoided > > deleting untracked files and directories in the way. But they don't. > > And rebase isn't the only offender, because this is buried in > > unpack_trees. In fact, it traces back to (and before) > > fcc387db9b ("read-tree -m -u: do not overwrite or remove untracked > > working tree files.", 2006-05-17) > > which has additional commentary over at > > https://lore.kernel.org/git/7v8xp1jc9h.fsf_-_@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx/. > > It appears that before this time, git happily nuked untracked files > > and considered them expendable, in basically all cases. However, this > > patch continued considering them as expendable whenever opts->reset > > was true. There wasn't much comment about it at the time for the > > reasoning of how opts->reset was handled, though trying to read > > between the lines perhaps Junio was trying to limit the backward > > compatibility concerns of introducing new errors to fewer code paths? > > Anyway, Junio did mention `read-tree --reset` explicitly, but this > > opts->reset usage also occurs in am, checkout, reset -- and anything > > that calls the reset_head() function including: rebase, stash, > > sequencer.c, and add-patch.c. > > > > So, then...should we preserve untracked (and non-ignored) files in all > > these cases? This rebase case seems clear, but others might be less > > clear. For example, should "git reset --hard" nuke untracked files > > (what if it's a directory of untracked files getting nuked just to > > place a single file in the location of the directory)? The > > documentation isn't explicit, but after reading it I would assume that > > untracked files should be preserved. Since we've had bugs in "git > > reset --hard" before, such as requiring two invocations in order to > > clear out unmerged entries (see [2] and [3]), that also suggests that > > this is just another bug in the same area. But the bug has been > > around so long that people might be expecting it; our testsuite has > > several cases that incidentally do. Granted, it's better to throw an > > error and require explicit extra steps than to nuke potentially > > important work, but some folks might be unhappy with a change here. > > Similarly with "git checkout -f". > > > > And stash.c, which operates in that edge case area has tests with > > files nuked from the cache without nuking it from the working tree > > (causing the working tree file to be considered untracked), and then > > attempts to have multiple tests operate on that kind of case. Those > > cases look a bit buggy to me for other reasons (I'm still digging), > > but those bugs are kind of hidden by the untracked file nuking bugs, > > so fixing the latter requires fixing the former. And stash.c is a > > mess of shelling out to subcommands. Ick. > > > > I have some partial patches, but don't know if I'll have anything to > > post until I figure out the stash mess... > > I'd just like to applaud this effort, and also suggest that the most > useful result of any such findings would be for us to produce some new > test in t/ showing these various cases of nuking/clobbering and other > "non-precious" edge cases in this logic. See[1] and its linked [2] for > references to some of the past discussions around these cases. > > 1. https://lore.kernel.org/git/87a6q9kacx.fsf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx/ > 2. https://lore.kernel.org/git/87ftsi68ke.fsf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx/ > > > [1] https://lore.kernel.org/git/YS8eEtwQvF7TaLCb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx/ > > [2] 25c200a700 ("t1015: demonstrate directory/file conflict recovery > > failures", 2018-07-31) > > [3] ad3762042a ("read-cache: fix directory/file conflict handling in > > read_index_unmerged()", 2018-07-31) >