For a personal project, I have two branches, one public and one private. I have one file (call a.b) that I will be updating regularly on my private branch, but when I merge the private branch onto the public branch, I don't want a.b updated. Is there a way to do this?

A branch specific git update-index --skip-worktree a.b command would be ideal, but from what I can tell, this command propagates to all branches.

CodePudding user response：

You could try merging without the automatic commit, and then make the appropriate changes to a specific file before finalising the merge commit.

Step 1:

Merge without the commit (no-ff so git doesn't just move the branch).

git merge <name-of-branch> --no-commit --no-ff

Step 2:

Restore the file

git restore --source=<name-of-other-branch> a.b

Step 3:

Commit the merge (make sure to write an appropriate message)

git commit