Question

This happens almost every time I init a new repo.

1. Start a new project. Create a bunch of new files.

2. git init

3. git add .

4. Oh shoot, there’s some IDE/build cruft I need to ignore.

5. echo ".scons-nodecount" > .gitignore

6. Dammit, .gitignore doesn’t see it because this file has already been added.

7. git reset .scons-nodecount

8. Dammit, git reset doesn’t work because there’s no commits yet.

   … not sure what to do here, so …

9. Start over: rm -rf .git

— edit —

How do I remove a file from the index on a fresh repo? git reset is what I’d traditionally do, but it seems like this isn’t allowed if there are no prior commits.

Answer 1

I do the same thing all the time. Try git rm --cached .scons-nodecount. This will instruct Git to remove the file, but only from the index (--cached).