To git checkout without overwriting data

Question

How can you git-checkout without overwriting the data?

I run

 git checkout master

I get

Answer 1

You can do a git reset --soft to make your HEAD point to the new branch, but leave all the files as they are (including the ones that were changed in the new branch). Then you can use git checkout to checkout just the files that you really want from the new branch.

       git reset [] []
           This form resets the current branch head to  and possibly updates the index (resetting it to the
           tree of ) and the working tree depending on . If  is omitted, defaults to --mixed.
           The  must be one of the following:

           --soft
               Does not touch the index file or the working tree at all (but resets the head to , just like
               all modes do). This leaves all your changed files "Changes to be committed", as git status would put
               it.