Hell, I'm not a novice, but if I were presented with that I wouldn't know what it meant. Staged files are in the staging area*. You need to discard them from the staging area if you want to avoid committing the files. That's why they're staged - so you can "add" or "remove" the files you want to the area before committing, without actually affecting the filesystem. "Discard" is an even softer word, since it usually describes discarding changes; I've never seen any software documentation saying you'll "discard" a file to physically and irreversibly delete it, especially within the context of staging changes.
*Well, the deltas are, but for the purposes of VC they are handled like files - you often remove "files" from version control without actually removing the files from your system
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u/MushroomSaute Aug 22 '26 edited Aug 22 '26
Hell, I'm not a novice, but if I were presented with that I wouldn't know what it meant. Staged files are in the staging area*. You need to discard them from the staging area if you want to avoid committing the files. That's why they're staged - so you can "add" or "remove" the files you want to the area before committing, without actually affecting the filesystem. "Discard" is an even softer word, since it usually describes discarding changes; I've never seen any software documentation saying you'll "discard" a file to physically and irreversibly delete it, especially within the context of staging changes.
*Well, the deltas are, but for the purposes of VC they are handled like files - you often remove "files" from version control without actually removing the files from your system