'git status' shows changed files, but 'git diff' doesn't

Question

I\'ve had a look at all similar questions. However, I\'ve double checked and something strange is definitely happening.

On one server (Solaris with Git 1.8.1) I clon

Answer 1

You did not really ask an actual question, but since this is a general use case I'm using quite often here's what I do. You may try this yourself and see if the error persists.

My assumption on your use case:

You have an existing directory containing files and directories and now want to convert it into a Git repository that is cloned from some place else without changing any data in your current directory.

There are really two ways.

Clone repo - mv .git - git reset --hard

This method is what you did - to clone the existing repository into an empty directory, then move the .git directory into the destination directory. To work without problems, this generally requires you then to run

git reset --hard

However, that would change the state of files in your current directory. You can try this on a full copy/rsync of your directory and study what changes. At least afterwards you should no longer see discrepancies between git log and status.

Init new repository - point to origin

The second is less disturbing: cd into your destination, and start a new repository with

git init

Then you tell that new repository, that it has an ancestor some place else:

git remote add origin original_git_repo_path

Then safely

git fetch origin master

to copy over the data without changing your local files. Everything should be fine now.

I always recommend the second way for being less error-prone.

Answer 2

For me, it had something to do with file permissions. Someone with Mac/Linux on my project seems to commit some files with non-default permissions which my Windows git client failed to reproduce. Solution for me was to tell git to ignore file permissions:

git config core.fileMode false

Other insight: How do I make Git ignore file mode (chmod) changes?

Answer 3

git diff -a treats all file as text and it works for me.