git rm --cached x vs git reset head -- x

Question

GitRef org - Basic      git rm will remove entries from the   staging area  This is a bit different   from git reset HEAD which  unstages    files  By  unstage  I mean it reverts   the staging area to what was there   before we started modifying things    git rm on the other hand just kicks   the file off the stage entirely  so   that it s not included in the next   commit snapshot  thereby effectively   deleting it       By default  a git rm file will remove the file from the staging area entirely and also off your disk    the working directory   To leave the file in the working directory  you can use git rm --cached    But what exactly is the difference between git rm --cached asd and git reset head -- asd

User · Answer

git rm --cached file will remove the file from the stage  That is  when you commit the file will be removed  git reset HEAD -- file will simply reset file in the staging area to the state where it was on the HEAD commit  i e  will undo any changes you did to it since last commiting  If that change happens to be newly adding the file  then they will be equivalent

User · Answer

Perhaps an example will help   git rm --cached asd git commit -m  the file asd is gone from the repository    versus  git reset HEAD -- asd git commit -m  the file asd remains in the repository    Note that if you haven t changed anything else  the second commit won t actually do anything

User · Answer

There are three places where a file  say  can be - the  committed  tree  the index and the working copy  When you just add a file to a folder  you are adding it to the working copy  When you do something like git add file you add it to the index  And when you commit it  you add it to the tree as well  It will probably help you to know the three more common flags in git reset   git reset  -- lt mode gt     lt commit gt   This form resets the current branch head to  lt commit gt  and possibly updates the index  resetting it to the tree of  lt commit gt   and the working tree depending on  lt mode gt   which must be one of the following  --soft Does not touch the index file nor the working tree at all  but resets the head to  lt commit gt   just like all modes do   This leaves all your changed files  quot Changes to be committed quot   as git status would put it  --mixed Resets the index but not the working tree  i e   the changed files are preserved but not marked for commit  and reports what has not been updated  This is the default action  --hard Resets the index and working tree  Any changes to tracked files in the working tree since  lt commit gt  are discarded   Now  when you do something like git reset HEAD  what you are actually doing is git reset HEAD --mixed and it will  quot reset quot  the index to the state it was before you started adding files   adding modifications to the index  via git add   In this case  no matter what the state of the working copy was  you didn t change it a single bit  but you changed the index in such a way that is now in sync with the HEAD of the tree  Whether git add was used to stage a previously committed but changed file  or to add a new  previously untracked  file  git reset HEAD is the exact opposite of git add  git rm  on the other hand  removes a file from the working directory and the index  and when you commit  the file is removed from the tree as well  git rm --cached  however  removes the file from the index alone and keeps it in your working copy  In this case  if the file was previously committed  then you made the index to be different from the HEAD of the tree and the working copy  so that the HEAD now has the previously committed version of the file  the index has no file at all  and the working copy has the last modification of it  A commit now will sync the index and the tree  and the file will be removed from the tree  leaving it untracked in the working copy   When git add was used to add a new  previously untracked  file  then git rm --cached is the exact opposite of git add  and is pretty much identical to git reset HEAD   Git 2 25 introduced a new command for these cases  git restore  but as of Git 2 28 it is described as    experimental    in the man page  in the sense that the behavior may change

[git] "git rm --cached x" vs "git reset head --? x"?

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