"git checkout -- *" returns "error: pathspec did not match any files known to git"

Question

As in question, if I want to discard changes in working directory I run command git checkout -- * but git returns information error: pathspec 'databaseName.tmp' did not match any file(s) known to git.. I'm not git master and I don't know how to solve it. Any idea?

Answer 1

As genisage noted in a comment, you're asking git explicitly to check out the file databaseName.tmp, as if you'd typed in:

git checkout -- databaseName.tmp

This is because the * you typed in is handled by the shell, before git ever has a chance to see your command. The shell replaces * with all the file names in your current working directory,¹ and then having done that, then runs git, without any indication that the actual command you entered had * in it, rather than all those names.

Again, git has no idea that you used the asterisk * character, all it sees is a list of file names, including any top-level ignored files that are not being stored in git.

Confusingly, if you manage somehow² to pass a literal asterisk * to git, git will expand the *, but with a different set of file names: those known to git. That would do what you want.

There's an easier way, though: git will check out directories recursively by checking out all the files it knows about in that directory. So, instead of using *, simply use . to ask git to check out the current directory:

git checkout -- .

If git knows about ./a and ./b but not ./databaseName.tmp, this will check out ./a and ./b and not attempt to do anything with ./databaseName.tmp.³

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¹More accurately, files whose names do not start with a leading dot ..

²And in fact, it's quite easy to manage, e.g., simply insert a backslash \ in front of the asterisk: git checkout -- \*. Or, use single or double quotes, both of which protect against shell globbing. Single quotes also inhibit shell variable expansion, while double quotes permit variable expansion but inhibit globbing.

³It's worth pointing out a subtle difference here: * expands to file names that do not start with ., while asking git to check out . causes it to check out all files in the directory, including those whose names start with .. Hence both git checkout -- \* and git checkout -- * will not undo changes to a file named .secret, for instance, while git checkout -- . will undo such changes.