GIT: How to keep ignored files when switching bran

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

You should use git rm --cached App.Local.config not only in you working branch but also in the branch you want to switch to, or you will lose your App.Local.config when you switch back to the branch you worked if you only use git rm --cached App.Local.config in that branch.

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

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