With git, temporary exclude a changed tracked file from commit in command line

Question

I have a tracked database (already added) file in git. I want this file to always contain the same data in my git repository. Even when I modify it in the working copy (local sandbox) for test purposes.

With git, how to exclude this changed file on my working copy from a commit ?

Answer 1

The way to ignore certain files that are already committed is

git update-index --assume-unchanged file

However, this is a local setting, and it doesn't propagate when cloning.

Its effect is canceled with git update-index --no-assume-unchanged gui.

Answer 2

Additionally to using git add I would suggest to use a shell with more capabilities, i.e. zsh. Here you can insert extended globbing like *~*.o(.) which means all files except such ending with o. This make it easier to add all files except one. Zsh also allows you to set a global alias: alias -g AF="*~*.o(.)". So you can type git add AF and it will be expanded in the right way.

Answer 3

If you don't do git commit -a, git commit will only commit files that you have explicitly added to the index using git add.