title: Lost my changes in git after branch and stash?
body: <p>I guess I did something I shouldn't have.  I tried to use stash, but thought that I should branch off, and do it there.  Anyway, so these are the commands I did:</p>
  
  <pre><code>git branch test     # created my test branch
  git checkout test   # moved to my test branch
  git status          # showed that the files were still changed.
  git stash           # testing stash
  git stash list      # showed that the stash was there
  git status          # showed that the files were still changed?
  git diff            # showed that the differences were only file permissions.
  git stash apply     # Tried to get back my changes. States:
                      #   error: Your local changes to the following files would be overwritten by merge:
                      #   ...
                      #   Please, commit your changes or stash them before you can merge.
                      #   Aborting
  git commit file -m "- committing test code that doesn't work."
  git status          # Shows that it's clean
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>So, I'm thinking that the problem is that branching and checking out wiped my changes instead of preserving them.  Is that correct?  If not, can I get my changes back?</p>