git - Unable to add files with name containing tilde, '~' followed by a number

Question

The folder consists of files with filenames like abc~1, 123~1, a1d2~3.

When I do git add --all it says,

$ git add --all
error: Invalid path 'abc~1.png'
error: unable to add abc~1.png to index
fatal: adding files failed

I did a trial and error and I found this error persists only when the tilde symbol is followed by a number.

If the folder is tracked by git for the first time, the other files are also not tracked by Git.

$ git clean --dry-run
Would remove Rest.png
Would remove abc~1.png

Please help how do I fix this issue.

Answer 1

This is the result of a change that was made to msys Git in December 2014.

On Windows' default filesystems, FAT and NTFS, DOS-style 8.3 file names are supported for backwards compatibility. That means that there are multiple ways to reference the same file. For example, the file credential-cache--daemon.c can also be accessed via CREDEN~1.C (unless another file has already been mapped to that so-called "short name", i.e. the exact short name is unpredictable).

Since this mapping is unpredictable, we need to disallow such file names on Windows, and while at it, we also exclude other file names incompatible with Windows' file systems (e.g. NUL, CON, etc).

We use the core.protectNTFS guard introduced in the previous commit to make sure that we prevent such file names only when appropriate.

To disable this behaviour, you can run:

git config core.protectNTFS false

However, since the new behaviour is there to protect you, I’d recommend changing it back after having added your files:

git config core.protectNTFS true

Only disable this protection when you need to add files with tildes in the name or check out branches containing such filenames.

In general, I’d recommend avoiding such filenames if working in a Windows environment.