How to ignore a file locally in git without ignoring it from the repository

When you are working with source control, you might find that you need a file to be in the repository, but you don't always need to commit the local changes to it. A good example for this is the Umbraco.sdf file in the App_Data folder of an Umbraco project which uses SQL CE for the database.

It is so annoying to see it in the list of changes every time you go to do a commit. You want to ignore it locally somehow without it being removed from the repo.

Well this week I discover a nice little command which lets you do just that. Here is the command:

git update-index --assume-unchanged filename

To get the correct file name and folder path, just do a git status and copy the full file path and then paste it in where it says the filename part above like this:

git update-index --assume-unchanged UDT.Web/App_Data/Umbraco.sdf

What this will do is update your local index to assume that this file does not change. That way it won't show up in your changes or git status anymore.

Don't worry you can get it back by entering virtually the same command, but instead of --assume-unchanged it you say --no-assume-unchanged like this:

git update-index --no-assume-unchanged UDT.Web/App_Data/Umbraco.sdf