[[!comment format=mdwn
 username="joey"
 subject="""comment 4"""
 date="2016-06-09T19:51:10Z"
 content="""
The symbolic-link-like file is in fact, a symlink, which is what git-annex
uses to represent an annexed file in git. If your filesystem does
not support symlinks, git writes the link location to a regular file
instead.

git annex drop removes the content of a file from the local repository, but
its symlink remains checked into git. So, the content of the file is
replaced by the symlink in your working tree.

That symlink should be the same thing git already had recorded for the
file.

Based on your earlier comment, it does seem that the symlink standin file
that git uses is being treated as new content for the file, and getting
annexed. That would be a bug.

Is that happening when you run `git annex sync` on Linux, or is it on Windows?

What else can you tell or show me to help me reproduce your problem? 
I've tried setting up an NTFS filesystem, putting a git-annex repository on it, and dropping a file;
git-annex sync did not do the wrong thing when I tried it.
"""]]
