Question

What is the difference between:

git clean -f temp1.txt

and

rm temp1.txt

Git doc says:

git-clean – Remove untracked files from the working tree

So what is really the point of doing this instead of only the system command?

Answer 1

rm will delete the file no matter what. git-clean will only delete it if it’s actually untracked. And of course git-clean also accepts arguments that customize its behavior in a repo-aware manner (e.g. -x).