switching branch despite of modified files

Question

$ git checkout staging
M   app/views/comments/index.html.erb
M   app/views/devise/registrations/new.html.erb
M   app/views/devise/sessions/new.html.erb
M   app/views/layouts/application.html.erb
M   app/views/songs/contact.html.erb
M   app/views/songs/faq.html.erb
M   app/views/songs/index.html.erb
M   app/views/songs/new.html.erb
M   app/views/songs/new_songs.html.erb
Switched to branch 'staging'

How is this possible? git usually refuses to change branch in case of uncommitted changes.

I played a bit, but did really not manage to get in such a situation. - What are the steps to get it a situation producing something like the above output?

I am aware of `git stash` but above it is clearly a `git checkout`. — michas, Aug 18 '13 at 07:49
Ah, sorry. I thought you wanted to stash changes and do work on a different branch. I have no idea how that's possible. — Brigand, Aug 18 '13 at 07:52

Abizern · Accepted Answer · 2013-08-18T08:43:28.180

6

It's not that Git refuses to allow a branch to change with uncommitted changes. It disallows changing a branch where changes would be overwritten.

In your case I assume that the listed files have the same committed state between branches.

If you want to see this kind of output duplicate your current branch, make some changes to some files and then switch to the other branch.

git branch newBranch
<edit some files>
git checkout newBranch

The checkout now shows exactly this kind of output.

edited Aug 18 '13 at 08:43

answered Aug 18 '13 at 07:45

Abizern

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Thanks, this was exactly the right idea. A did a small edit to make it more clear. – michas Aug 18 '13 at 08:41

switching branch despite of modified files

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