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- You do not need to stash when you change branches and have uncommitted working directory changes. Error would occur if you have conflicts between branches.
Blacklist vs. whitelist
In the [GitHub User Guide](GitHub User Guide.md), we cover how to create a repo from scratch by simply copying files into a new repo. However, often you want to maintain your files on Box/Dropbox while also versioning them on GitHub. How to do this?
All Git repos contain a (hidden) subfolder named .git at their root (their topmost folder). Thus, the simplest solution to integrating with Box/Dropbox is to create a new repo outside Box/Dropbox (i.e., somewhere on your local computer), then copy the resulting .git folder into your existing set of files — put it where you want the root of the repository to be. Note that to do so, you must be able to view hidden files and folders. In Windows, modify your viewing settings in Explorer (the file navigator) by selecting the Organize > Folder and search options menu option, then selecting the View tab.
Alternatively — the previous option is usually superior to this — when creating your repo, you can create a new folder within Box/Dropbox. Then copy all files from your old/existing folder into this new folder (which contains the hidden .git folder), then delete the old folder, renaming the new folder with the name of the old folder. You should not be syncing when you do this, because Box/Dropbox do not always respond to rename operations gracefully.
In rare cases, using GitExtensions can cause files in your repo to be unexpectedly deleted. The most likely cause of this is clicking the Reset all changes or Reset unstaged changes button in the commit window when you set your .gitignore to ignore all of the files in a given folder. For instance, if *.dta is specified in the .gitignore, and a folder in your repo contains only .dta files, these will be deleted if you click Reset all changes. There are several ways to guard against this problem:
- If you want to reset changes, right-click on individual files that you want to reset in the
commit window (which will remove all changes made to that file since its last commit). You can select multiple files at once: bulk resetting is OK, just don't click the
Reset all changesbutton. - Alternatively, you can ensure that at least 1 non-ignored file (say, an empty
.txtfile or a.gitignoreor.gitkeepfile) is in every folder in your repo. - Finally, you can simply not use a
.gitignorefile, or you can use a limited.gitignorethat, for instance, does not ignore data files.- This is usually possible when the data is stored outside the repo — another reason to consider that data management model.
The easiest solution is to never click the Reset all changes button. If your files are deleted, unfortunately there is no recourse through Git, and you will have to rely on recovering them using Box/Dropbox. While this situation will not occur if you follow the above instructions, it underscores the importance of always having a secondary backup of your files.
This appears to be an issue with GitExtensions rather than Git or GitHub. It seems that GitExtensions runs git clean -df when you reset all changes. Of course, another option is to use another GUI, such as GitHub for Windows.