I have some modifications in a git stash, and I would like to apply them using git stash pop or git stash apply. But I have changed some indentation in the files that the stash changes, and when I try to apply the stash, I get a bunch of merge conflicts. Is there a way to ignore whitespace while applying the stash, similar to the -Xignore-all-space option for git merge?
I tried git stash apply -Xignore-all-space stash@{2} and it told me error: unknown switch `X'.
Don't try to do this with git stash. Use the full Git tool suite.
OK, but you already have a stash. Fortunately there's a really easy way to convert the stash to a temporary branch, using git stash branch:
git status # make sure all is clean; if not, commit or stash
then:
git stash branch temp-branch stash@{2}
git status
git commit # optional: use if desired to save index before adding
git add ... # add all files as needed
git commit # make the commit
Now go back to the branch you were on and use git merge or git cherry-pick or whatever you like to work with the commit at the tip of temp-branch. The -X options are now available.
Note that git stash branch will have run git stash drop stash@{2}. That's OK because now you have a whole branch, named temp-branch (or any other name of your choice).
(You can do this, sort of, carefully, with git cherry-pick directly on stash@{2}, but it's hard and painful; the git stash branch method is a bit klunky, but painless. If you really want to do it directly, remember that this is reflog entry #2 of refs/stash, and the stash commit for w takes the form of a merge, with first-parent being the commit from which the "stash bag" depends.)
I had this same problem once, and I didn't find any option to git-stash to ignore whitespaces. But git-apply does have it. So what I did was:
$ git stash show --patch stash@{2} | git apply --ignore-whitespace
And then optionally, git stash drop to delete the stash.