| gitattributes(5) |
| ================ |
| |
| NAME |
| ---- |
| gitattributes - Defining attributes per path |
| |
| SYNOPSIS |
| -------- |
| $GIT_DIR/info/attributes, .gitattributes |
| |
| |
| DESCRIPTION |
| ----------- |
| |
| A `gitattributes` file is a simple text file that gives |
| `attributes` to pathnames. |
| |
| Each line in `gitattributes` file is of form: |
| |
| pattern attr1 attr2 ... |
| |
| That is, a pattern followed by an attributes list, |
| separated by whitespaces. Leading and trailing whitespaces are |
| ignored. Lines that begin with '#' are ignored. Patterns |
| that begin with a double quote are quoted in C style. |
| When the pattern matches the path in question, the attributes |
| listed on the line are given to the path. |
| |
| Each attribute can be in one of these states for a given path: |
| |
| Set:: |
| |
| The path has the attribute with special value "true"; |
| this is specified by listing only the name of the |
| attribute in the attribute list. |
| |
| Unset:: |
| |
| The path has the attribute with special value "false"; |
| this is specified by listing the name of the attribute |
| prefixed with a dash `-` in the attribute list. |
| |
| Set to a value:: |
| |
| The path has the attribute with specified string value; |
| this is specified by listing the name of the attribute |
| followed by an equal sign `=` and its value in the |
| attribute list. |
| |
| Unspecified:: |
| |
| No pattern matches the path, and nothing says if |
| the path has or does not have the attribute, the |
| attribute for the path is said to be Unspecified. |
| |
| When more than one pattern matches the path, a later line |
| overrides an earlier line. This overriding is done per |
| attribute. |
| |
| The rules by which the pattern matches paths are the same as in |
| `.gitignore` files (see linkgit:gitignore[5]), with a few exceptions: |
| |
| - negative patterns are forbidden |
| |
| - patterns that match a directory do not recursively match paths |
| inside that directory (so using the trailing-slash `path/` syntax is |
| pointless in an attributes file; use `path/**` instead) |
| |
| When deciding what attributes are assigned to a path, Git |
| consults `$GIT_DIR/info/attributes` file (which has the highest |
| precedence), `.gitattributes` file in the same directory as the |
| path in question, and its parent directories up to the toplevel of the |
| work tree (the further the directory that contains `.gitattributes` |
| is from the path in question, the lower its precedence). Finally |
| global and system-wide files are considered (they have the lowest |
| precedence). |
| |
| When the `.gitattributes` file is missing from the work tree, the |
| path in the index is used as a fall-back. During checkout process, |
| `.gitattributes` in the index is used and then the file in the |
| working tree is used as a fall-back. |
| |
| If you wish to affect only a single repository (i.e., to assign |
| attributes to files that are particular to |
| one user's workflow for that repository), then |
| attributes should be placed in the `$GIT_DIR/info/attributes` file. |
| Attributes which should be version-controlled and distributed to other |
| repositories (i.e., attributes of interest to all users) should go into |
| `.gitattributes` files. Attributes that should affect all repositories |
| for a single user should be placed in a file specified by the |
| `core.attributesFile` configuration option (see linkgit:git-config[1]). |
| Its default value is $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/git/attributes. If $XDG_CONFIG_HOME |
| is either not set or empty, $HOME/.config/git/attributes is used instead. |
| Attributes for all users on a system should be placed in the |
| `$(prefix)/etc/gitattributes` file. |
| |
| Sometimes you would need to override a setting of an attribute |
| for a path to `Unspecified` state. This can be done by listing |
| the name of the attribute prefixed with an exclamation point `!`. |
| |
| |
| EFFECTS |
| ------- |
| |
| Certain operations by Git can be influenced by assigning |
| particular attributes to a path. Currently, the following |
| operations are attributes-aware. |
| |
| Checking-out and checking-in |
| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ |
| |
| These attributes affect how the contents stored in the |
| repository are copied to the working tree files when commands |
| such as 'git switch', 'git checkout' and 'git merge' run. |
| They also affect how |
| Git stores the contents you prepare in the working tree in the |
| repository upon 'git add' and 'git commit'. |
| |
| `text` |
| ^^^^^^ |
| |
| This attribute enables and controls end-of-line normalization. When a |
| text file is normalized, its line endings are converted to LF in the |
| repository. To control what line ending style is used in the working |
| directory, use the `eol` attribute for a single file and the |
| `core.eol` configuration variable for all text files. |
| Note that setting `core.autocrlf` to `true` or `input` overrides |
| `core.eol` (see the definitions of those options in |
| linkgit:git-config[1]). |
| |
| Set:: |
| |
| Setting the `text` attribute on a path enables end-of-line |
| normalization and marks the path as a text file. End-of-line |
| conversion takes place without guessing the content type. |
| |
| Unset:: |
| |
| Unsetting the `text` attribute on a path tells Git not to |
| attempt any end-of-line conversion upon checkin or checkout. |
| |
| Set to string value "auto":: |
| |
| When `text` is set to "auto", the path is marked for automatic |
| end-of-line conversion. If Git decides that the content is |
| text, its line endings are converted to LF on checkin. |
| When the file has been committed with CRLF, no conversion is done. |
| |
| Unspecified:: |
| |
| If the `text` attribute is unspecified, Git uses the |
| `core.autocrlf` configuration variable to determine if the |
| file should be converted. |
| |
| Any other value causes Git to act as if `text` has been left |
| unspecified. |
| |
| `eol` |
| ^^^^^ |
| |
| This attribute sets a specific line-ending style to be used in the |
| working directory. It enables end-of-line conversion without any |
| content checks, effectively setting the `text` attribute. Note that |
| setting this attribute on paths which are in the index with CRLF line |
| endings may make the paths to be considered dirty. Adding the path to |
| the index again will normalize the line endings in the index. |
| |
| Set to string value "crlf":: |
| |
| This setting forces Git to normalize line endings for this |
| file on checkin and convert them to CRLF when the file is |
| checked out. |
| |
| Set to string value "lf":: |
| |
| This setting forces Git to normalize line endings to LF on |
| checkin and prevents conversion to CRLF when the file is |
| checked out. |
| |
| Backwards compatibility with `crlf` attribute |
| ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ |
| |
| For backwards compatibility, the `crlf` attribute is interpreted as |
| follows: |
| |
| ------------------------ |
| crlf text |
| -crlf -text |
| crlf=input eol=lf |
| ------------------------ |
| |
| End-of-line conversion |
| ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ |
| |
| While Git normally leaves file contents alone, it can be configured to |
| normalize line endings to LF in the repository and, optionally, to |
| convert them to CRLF when files are checked out. |
| |
| If you simply want to have CRLF line endings in your working directory |
| regardless of the repository you are working with, you can set the |
| config variable "core.autocrlf" without using any attributes. |
| |
| ------------------------ |
| [core] |
| autocrlf = true |
| ------------------------ |
| |
| This does not force normalization of text files, but does ensure |
| that text files that you introduce to the repository have their line |
| endings normalized to LF when they are added, and that files that are |
| already normalized in the repository stay normalized. |
| |
| If you want to ensure that text files that any contributor introduces to |
| the repository have their line endings normalized, you can set the |
| `text` attribute to "auto" for _all_ files. |
| |
| ------------------------ |
| * text=auto |
| ------------------------ |
| |
| The attributes allow a fine-grained control, how the line endings |
| are converted. |
| Here is an example that will make Git normalize .txt, .vcproj and .sh |
| files, ensure that .vcproj files have CRLF and .sh files have LF in |
| the working directory, and prevent .jpg files from being normalized |
| regardless of their content. |
| |
| ------------------------ |
| * text=auto |
| *.txt text |
| *.vcproj text eol=crlf |
| *.sh text eol=lf |
| *.jpg -text |
| ------------------------ |
| |
| NOTE: When `text=auto` conversion is enabled in a cross-platform |
| project using push and pull to a central repository the text files |
| containing CRLFs should be normalized. |
| |
| From a clean working directory: |
| |
| ------------------------------------------------- |
| $ echo "* text=auto" >.gitattributes |
| $ git add --renormalize . |
| $ git status # Show files that will be normalized |
| $ git commit -m "Introduce end-of-line normalization" |
| ------------------------------------------------- |
| |
| If any files that should not be normalized show up in 'git status', |
| unset their `text` attribute before running 'git add -u'. |
| |
| ------------------------ |
| manual.pdf -text |
| ------------------------ |
| |
| Conversely, text files that Git does not detect can have normalization |
| enabled manually. |
| |
| ------------------------ |
| weirdchars.txt text |
| ------------------------ |
| |
| If `core.safecrlf` is set to "true" or "warn", Git verifies if |
| the conversion is reversible for the current setting of |
| `core.autocrlf`. For "true", Git rejects irreversible |
| conversions; for "warn", Git only prints a warning but accepts |
| an irreversible conversion. The safety triggers to prevent such |
| a conversion done to the files in the work tree, but there are a |
| few exceptions. Even though... |
| |
| - 'git add' itself does not touch the files in the work tree, the |
| next checkout would, so the safety triggers; |
| |
| - 'git apply' to update a text file with a patch does touch the files |
| in the work tree, but the operation is about text files and CRLF |
| conversion is about fixing the line ending inconsistencies, so the |
| safety does not trigger; |
| |
| - 'git diff' itself does not touch the files in the work tree, it is |
| often run to inspect the changes you intend to next 'git add'. To |
| catch potential problems early, safety triggers. |
| |
| |
| `working-tree-encoding` |
| ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ |
| |
| Git recognizes files encoded in ASCII or one of its supersets (e.g. |
| UTF-8, ISO-8859-1, ...) as text files. Files encoded in certain other |
| encodings (e.g. UTF-16) are interpreted as binary and consequently |
| built-in Git text processing tools (e.g. 'git diff') as well as most Git |
| web front ends do not visualize the contents of these files by default. |
| |
| In these cases you can tell Git the encoding of a file in the working |
| directory with the `working-tree-encoding` attribute. If a file with this |
| attribute is added to Git, then Git re-encodes the content from the |
| specified encoding to UTF-8. Finally, Git stores the UTF-8 encoded |
| content in its internal data structure (called "the index"). On checkout |
| the content is re-encoded back to the specified encoding. |
| |
| Please note that using the `working-tree-encoding` attribute may have a |
| number of pitfalls: |
| |
| - Alternative Git implementations (e.g. JGit or libgit2) and older Git |
| versions (as of March 2018) do not support the `working-tree-encoding` |
| attribute. If you decide to use the `working-tree-encoding` attribute |
| in your repository, then it is strongly recommended to ensure that all |
| clients working with the repository support it. |
| + |
| For example, Microsoft Visual Studio resources files (`*.rc`) or |
| PowerShell script files (`*.ps1`) are sometimes encoded in UTF-16. |
| If you declare `*.ps1` as files as UTF-16 and you add `foo.ps1` with |
| a `working-tree-encoding` enabled Git client, then `foo.ps1` will be |
| stored as UTF-8 internally. A client without `working-tree-encoding` |
| support will checkout `foo.ps1` as UTF-8 encoded file. This will |
| typically cause trouble for the users of this file. |
| + |
| If a Git client that does not support the `working-tree-encoding` |
| attribute adds a new file `bar.ps1`, then `bar.ps1` will be |
| stored "as-is" internally (in this example probably as UTF-16). |
| A client with `working-tree-encoding` support will interpret the |
| internal contents as UTF-8 and try to convert it to UTF-16 on checkout. |
| That operation will fail and cause an error. |
| |
| - Reencoding content to non-UTF encodings can cause errors as the |
| conversion might not be UTF-8 round trip safe. If you suspect your |
| encoding to not be round trip safe, then add it to |
| `core.checkRoundtripEncoding` to make Git check the round trip |
| encoding (see linkgit:git-config[1]). SHIFT-JIS (Japanese character |
| set) is known to have round trip issues with UTF-8 and is checked by |
| default. |
| |
| - Reencoding content requires resources that might slow down certain |
| Git operations (e.g 'git checkout' or 'git add'). |
| |
| Use the `working-tree-encoding` attribute only if you cannot store a file |
| in UTF-8 encoding and if you want Git to be able to process the content |
| as text. |
| |
| As an example, use the following attributes if your '*.ps1' files are |
| UTF-16 encoded with byte order mark (BOM) and you want Git to perform |
| automatic line ending conversion based on your platform. |
| |
| ------------------------ |
| *.ps1 text working-tree-encoding=UTF-16 |
| ------------------------ |
| |
| Use the following attributes if your '*.ps1' files are UTF-16 little |
| endian encoded without BOM and you want Git to use Windows line endings |
| in the working directory (use `UTF-16LE-BOM` instead of `UTF-16LE` if |
| you want UTF-16 little endian with BOM). |
| Please note, it is highly recommended to |
| explicitly define the line endings with `eol` if the `working-tree-encoding` |
| attribute is used to avoid ambiguity. |
| |
| ------------------------ |
| *.ps1 text working-tree-encoding=UTF-16LE eol=CRLF |
| ------------------------ |
| |
| You can get a list of all available encodings on your platform with the |
| following command: |
| |
| ------------------------ |
| iconv --list |
| ------------------------ |
| |
| If you do not know the encoding of a file, then you can use the `file` |
| command to guess the encoding: |
| |
| ------------------------ |
| file foo.ps1 |
| ------------------------ |
| |
| |
| `ident` |
| ^^^^^^^ |
| |
| When the attribute `ident` is set for a path, Git replaces |
| `$Id$` in the blob object with `$Id:`, followed by the |
| 40-character hexadecimal blob object name, followed by a dollar |
| sign `$` upon checkout. Any byte sequence that begins with |
| `$Id:` and ends with `$` in the worktree file is replaced |
| with `$Id$` upon check-in. |
| |
| |
| `filter` |
| ^^^^^^^^ |
| |
| A `filter` attribute can be set to a string value that names a |
| filter driver specified in the configuration. |
| |
| A filter driver consists of a `clean` command and a `smudge` |
| command, either of which can be left unspecified. Upon |
| checkout, when the `smudge` command is specified, the command is |
| fed the blob object from its standard input, and its standard |
| output is used to update the worktree file. Similarly, the |
| `clean` command is used to convert the contents of worktree file |
| upon checkin. By default these commands process only a single |
| blob and terminate. If a long running `process` filter is used |
| in place of `clean` and/or `smudge` filters, then Git can process |
| all blobs with a single filter command invocation for the entire |
| life of a single Git command, for example `git add --all`. If a |
| long running `process` filter is configured then it always takes |
| precedence over a configured single blob filter. See section |
| below for the description of the protocol used to communicate with |
| a `process` filter. |
| |
| One use of the content filtering is to massage the content into a shape |
| that is more convenient for the platform, filesystem, and the user to use. |
| For this mode of operation, the key phrase here is "more convenient" and |
| not "turning something unusable into usable". In other words, the intent |
| is that if someone unsets the filter driver definition, or does not have |
| the appropriate filter program, the project should still be usable. |
| |
| Another use of the content filtering is to store the content that cannot |
| be directly used in the repository (e.g. a UUID that refers to the true |
| content stored outside Git, or an encrypted content) and turn it into a |
| usable form upon checkout (e.g. download the external content, or decrypt |
| the encrypted content). |
| |
| These two filters behave differently, and by default, a filter is taken as |
| the former, massaging the contents into more convenient shape. A missing |
| filter driver definition in the config, or a filter driver that exits with |
| a non-zero status, is not an error but makes the filter a no-op passthru. |
| |
| You can declare that a filter turns a content that by itself is unusable |
| into a usable content by setting the filter.<driver>.required configuration |
| variable to `true`. |
| |
| Note: Whenever the clean filter is changed, the repo should be renormalized: |
| $ git add --renormalize . |
| |
| For example, in .gitattributes, you would assign the `filter` |
| attribute for paths. |
| |
| ------------------------ |
| *.c filter=indent |
| ------------------------ |
| |
| Then you would define a "filter.indent.clean" and "filter.indent.smudge" |
| configuration in your .git/config to specify a pair of commands to |
| modify the contents of C programs when the source files are checked |
| in ("clean" is run) and checked out (no change is made because the |
| command is "cat"). |
| |
| ------------------------ |
| [filter "indent"] |
| clean = indent |
| smudge = cat |
| ------------------------ |
| |
| For best results, `clean` should not alter its output further if it is |
| run twice ("clean->clean" should be equivalent to "clean"), and |
| multiple `smudge` commands should not alter `clean`'s output |
| ("smudge->smudge->clean" should be equivalent to "clean"). See the |
| section on merging below. |
| |
| The "indent" filter is well-behaved in this regard: it will not modify |
| input that is already correctly indented. In this case, the lack of a |
| smudge filter means that the clean filter _must_ accept its own output |
| without modifying it. |
| |
| If a filter _must_ succeed in order to make the stored contents usable, |
| you can declare that the filter is `required`, in the configuration: |
| |
| ------------------------ |
| [filter "crypt"] |
| clean = openssl enc ... |
| smudge = openssl enc -d ... |
| required |
| ------------------------ |
| |
| Sequence "%f" on the filter command line is replaced with the name of |
| the file the filter is working on. A filter might use this in keyword |
| substitution. For example: |
| |
| ------------------------ |
| [filter "p4"] |
| clean = git-p4-filter --clean %f |
| smudge = git-p4-filter --smudge %f |
| ------------------------ |
| |
| Note that "%f" is the name of the path that is being worked on. Depending |
| on the version that is being filtered, the corresponding file on disk may |
| not exist, or may have different contents. So, smudge and clean commands |
| should not try to access the file on disk, but only act as filters on the |
| content provided to them on standard input. |
| |
| Long Running Filter Process |
| ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ |
| |
| If the filter command (a string value) is defined via |
| `filter.<driver>.process` then Git can process all blobs with a |
| single filter invocation for the entire life of a single Git |
| command. This is achieved by using the long-running process protocol |
| (described in technical/long-running-process-protocol.txt). |
| |
| When Git encounters the first file that needs to be cleaned or smudged, |
| it starts the filter and performs the handshake. In the handshake, the |
| welcome message sent by Git is "git-filter-client", only version 2 is |
| supported, and the supported capabilities are "clean", "smudge", and |
| "delay". |
| |
| Afterwards Git sends a list of "key=value" pairs terminated with |
| a flush packet. The list will contain at least the filter command |
| (based on the supported capabilities) and the pathname of the file |
| to filter relative to the repository root. Right after the flush packet |
| Git sends the content split in zero or more pkt-line packets and a |
| flush packet to terminate content. Please note, that the filter |
| must not send any response before it received the content and the |
| final flush packet. Also note that the "value" of a "key=value" pair |
| can contain the "=" character whereas the key would never contain |
| that character. |
| ------------------------ |
| packet: git> command=smudge |
| packet: git> pathname=path/testfile.dat |
| packet: git> 0000 |
| packet: git> CONTENT |
| packet: git> 0000 |
| ------------------------ |
| |
| The filter is expected to respond with a list of "key=value" pairs |
| terminated with a flush packet. If the filter does not experience |
| problems then the list must contain a "success" status. Right after |
| these packets the filter is expected to send the content in zero |
| or more pkt-line packets and a flush packet at the end. Finally, a |
| second list of "key=value" pairs terminated with a flush packet |
| is expected. The filter can change the status in the second list |
| or keep the status as is with an empty list. Please note that the |
| empty list must be terminated with a flush packet regardless. |
| |
| ------------------------ |
| packet: git< status=success |
| packet: git< 0000 |
| packet: git< SMUDGED_CONTENT |
| packet: git< 0000 |
| packet: git< 0000 # empty list, keep "status=success" unchanged! |
| ------------------------ |
| |
| If the result content is empty then the filter is expected to respond |
| with a "success" status and a flush packet to signal the empty content. |
| ------------------------ |
| packet: git< status=success |
| packet: git< 0000 |
| packet: git< 0000 # empty content! |
| packet: git< 0000 # empty list, keep "status=success" unchanged! |
| ------------------------ |
| |
| In case the filter cannot or does not want to process the content, |
| it is expected to respond with an "error" status. |
| ------------------------ |
| packet: git< status=error |
| packet: git< 0000 |
| ------------------------ |
| |
| If the filter experiences an error during processing, then it can |
| send the status "error" after the content was (partially or |
| completely) sent. |
| ------------------------ |
| packet: git< status=success |
| packet: git< 0000 |
| packet: git< HALF_WRITTEN_ERRONEOUS_CONTENT |
| packet: git< 0000 |
| packet: git< status=error |
| packet: git< 0000 |
| ------------------------ |
| |
| In case the filter cannot or does not want to process the content |
| as well as any future content for the lifetime of the Git process, |
| then it is expected to respond with an "abort" status at any point |
| in the protocol. |
| ------------------------ |
| packet: git< status=abort |
| packet: git< 0000 |
| ------------------------ |
| |
| Git neither stops nor restarts the filter process in case the |
| "error"/"abort" status is set. However, Git sets its exit code |
| according to the `filter.<driver>.required` flag, mimicking the |
| behavior of the `filter.<driver>.clean` / `filter.<driver>.smudge` |
| mechanism. |
| |
| If the filter dies during the communication or does not adhere to |
| the protocol then Git will stop the filter process and restart it |
| with the next file that needs to be processed. Depending on the |
| `filter.<driver>.required` flag Git will interpret that as error. |
| |
| Delay |
| ^^^^^ |
| |
| If the filter supports the "delay" capability, then Git can send the |
| flag "can-delay" after the filter command and pathname. This flag |
| denotes that the filter can delay filtering the current blob (e.g. to |
| compensate network latencies) by responding with no content but with |
| the status "delayed" and a flush packet. |
| ------------------------ |
| packet: git> command=smudge |
| packet: git> pathname=path/testfile.dat |
| packet: git> can-delay=1 |
| packet: git> 0000 |
| packet: git> CONTENT |
| packet: git> 0000 |
| packet: git< status=delayed |
| packet: git< 0000 |
| ------------------------ |
| |
| If the filter supports the "delay" capability then it must support the |
| "list_available_blobs" command. If Git sends this command, then the |
| filter is expected to return a list of pathnames representing blobs |
| that have been delayed earlier and are now available. |
| The list must be terminated with a flush packet followed |
| by a "success" status that is also terminated with a flush packet. If |
| no blobs for the delayed paths are available, yet, then the filter is |
| expected to block the response until at least one blob becomes |
| available. The filter can tell Git that it has no more delayed blobs |
| by sending an empty list. As soon as the filter responds with an empty |
| list, Git stops asking. All blobs that Git has not received at this |
| point are considered missing and will result in an error. |
| |
| ------------------------ |
| packet: git> command=list_available_blobs |
| packet: git> 0000 |
| packet: git< pathname=path/testfile.dat |
| packet: git< pathname=path/otherfile.dat |
| packet: git< 0000 |
| packet: git< status=success |
| packet: git< 0000 |
| ------------------------ |
| |
| After Git received the pathnames, it will request the corresponding |
| blobs again. These requests contain a pathname and an empty content |
| section. The filter is expected to respond with the smudged content |
| in the usual way as explained above. |
| ------------------------ |
| packet: git> command=smudge |
| packet: git> pathname=path/testfile.dat |
| packet: git> 0000 |
| packet: git> 0000 # empty content! |
| packet: git< status=success |
| packet: git< 0000 |
| packet: git< SMUDGED_CONTENT |
| packet: git< 0000 |
| packet: git< 0000 # empty list, keep "status=success" unchanged! |
| ------------------------ |
| |
| Example |
| ^^^^^^^ |
| |
| A long running filter demo implementation can be found in |
| `contrib/long-running-filter/example.pl` located in the Git |
| core repository. If you develop your own long running filter |
| process then the `GIT_TRACE_PACKET` environment variables can be |
| very helpful for debugging (see linkgit:git[1]). |
| |
| Please note that you cannot use an existing `filter.<driver>.clean` |
| or `filter.<driver>.smudge` command with `filter.<driver>.process` |
| because the former two use a different inter process communication |
| protocol than the latter one. |
| |
| |
| Interaction between checkin/checkout attributes |
| ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ |
| |
| In the check-in codepath, the worktree file is first converted |
| with `filter` driver (if specified and corresponding driver |
| defined), then the result is processed with `ident` (if |
| specified), and then finally with `text` (again, if specified |
| and applicable). |
| |
| In the check-out codepath, the blob content is first converted |
| with `text`, and then `ident` and fed to `filter`. |
| |
| |
| Merging branches with differing checkin/checkout attributes |
| ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ |
| |
| If you have added attributes to a file that cause the canonical |
| repository format for that file to change, such as adding a |
| clean/smudge filter or text/eol/ident attributes, merging anything |
| where the attribute is not in place would normally cause merge |
| conflicts. |
| |
| To prevent these unnecessary merge conflicts, Git can be told to run a |
| virtual check-out and check-in of all three stages of a file when |
| resolving a three-way merge by setting the `merge.renormalize` |
| configuration variable. This prevents changes caused by check-in |
| conversion from causing spurious merge conflicts when a converted file |
| is merged with an unconverted file. |
| |
| As long as a "smudge->clean" results in the same output as a "clean" |
| even on files that are already smudged, this strategy will |
| automatically resolve all filter-related conflicts. Filters that do |
| not act in this way may cause additional merge conflicts that must be |
| resolved manually. |
| |
| |
| Generating diff text |
| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ |
| |
| `diff` |
| ^^^^^^ |
| |
| The attribute `diff` affects how Git generates diffs for particular |
| files. It can tell Git whether to generate a textual patch for the path |
| or to treat the path as a binary file. It can also affect what line is |
| shown on the hunk header `@@ -k,l +n,m @@` line, tell Git to use an |
| external command to generate the diff, or ask Git to convert binary |
| files to a text format before generating the diff. |
| |
| Set:: |
| |
| A path to which the `diff` attribute is set is treated |
| as text, even when they contain byte values that |
| normally never appear in text files, such as NUL. |
| |
| Unset:: |
| |
| A path to which the `diff` attribute is unset will |
| generate `Binary files differ` (or a binary patch, if |
| binary patches are enabled). |
| |
| Unspecified:: |
| |
| A path to which the `diff` attribute is unspecified |
| first gets its contents inspected, and if it looks like |
| text and is smaller than core.bigFileThreshold, it is treated |
| as text. Otherwise it would generate `Binary files differ`. |
| |
| String:: |
| |
| Diff is shown using the specified diff driver. Each driver may |
| specify one or more options, as described in the following |
| section. The options for the diff driver "foo" are defined |
| by the configuration variables in the "diff.foo" section of the |
| Git config file. |
| |
| |
| Defining an external diff driver |
| ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ |
| |
| The definition of a diff driver is done in `gitconfig`, not |
| `gitattributes` file, so strictly speaking this manual page is a |
| wrong place to talk about it. However... |
| |
| To define an external diff driver `jcdiff`, add a section to your |
| `$GIT_DIR/config` file (or `$HOME/.gitconfig` file) like this: |
| |
| ---------------------------------------------------------------- |
| [diff "jcdiff"] |
| command = j-c-diff |
| ---------------------------------------------------------------- |
| |
| When Git needs to show you a diff for the path with `diff` |
| attribute set to `jcdiff`, it calls the command you specified |
| with the above configuration, i.e. `j-c-diff`, with 7 |
| parameters, just like `GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF` program is called. |
| See linkgit:git[1] for details. |
| |
| |
| Defining a custom hunk-header |
| ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ |
| |
| Each group of changes (called a "hunk") in the textual diff output |
| is prefixed with a line of the form: |
| |
| @@ -k,l +n,m @@ TEXT |
| |
| This is called a 'hunk header'. The "TEXT" portion is by default a line |
| that begins with an alphabet, an underscore or a dollar sign; this |
| matches what GNU 'diff -p' output uses. This default selection however |
| is not suited for some contents, and you can use a customized pattern |
| to make a selection. |
| |
| First, in .gitattributes, you would assign the `diff` attribute |
| for paths. |
| |
| ------------------------ |
| *.tex diff=tex |
| ------------------------ |
| |
| Then, you would define a "diff.tex.xfuncname" configuration to |
| specify a regular expression that matches a line that you would |
| want to appear as the hunk header "TEXT". Add a section to your |
| `$GIT_DIR/config` file (or `$HOME/.gitconfig` file) like this: |
| |
| ------------------------ |
| [diff "tex"] |
| xfuncname = "^(\\\\(sub)*section\\{.*)$" |
| ------------------------ |
| |
| Note. A single level of backslashes are eaten by the |
| configuration file parser, so you would need to double the |
| backslashes; the pattern above picks a line that begins with a |
| backslash, and zero or more occurrences of `sub` followed by |
| `section` followed by open brace, to the end of line. |
| |
| There are a few built-in patterns to make this easier, and `tex` |
| is one of them, so you do not have to write the above in your |
| configuration file (you still need to enable this with the |
| attribute mechanism, via `.gitattributes`). The following built in |
| patterns are available: |
| |
| - `ada` suitable for source code in the Ada language. |
| |
| - `bibtex` suitable for files with BibTeX coded references. |
| |
| - `cpp` suitable for source code in the C and C++ languages. |
| |
| - `csharp` suitable for source code in the C# language. |
| |
| - `css` suitable for cascading style sheets. |
| |
| - `dts` suitable for devicetree (DTS) files. |
| |
| - `elixir` suitable for source code in the Elixir language. |
| |
| - `fortran` suitable for source code in the Fortran language. |
| |
| - `fountain` suitable for Fountain documents. |
| |
| - `golang` suitable for source code in the Go language. |
| |
| - `html` suitable for HTML/XHTML documents. |
| |
| - `java` suitable for source code in the Java language. |
| |
| - `matlab` suitable for source code in the MATLAB and Octave languages. |
| |
| - `objc` suitable for source code in the Objective-C language. |
| |
| - `pascal` suitable for source code in the Pascal/Delphi language. |
| |
| - `perl` suitable for source code in the Perl language. |
| |
| - `php` suitable for source code in the PHP language. |
| |
| - `python` suitable for source code in the Python language. |
| |
| - `ruby` suitable for source code in the Ruby language. |
| |
| - `rust` suitable for source code in the Rust language. |
| |
| - `tex` suitable for source code for LaTeX documents. |
| |
| |
| Customizing word diff |
| ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ |
| |
| You can customize the rules that `git diff --word-diff` uses to |
| split words in a line, by specifying an appropriate regular expression |
| in the "diff.*.wordRegex" configuration variable. For example, in TeX |
| a backslash followed by a sequence of letters forms a command, but |
| several such commands can be run together without intervening |
| whitespace. To separate them, use a regular expression in your |
| `$GIT_DIR/config` file (or `$HOME/.gitconfig` file) like this: |
| |
| ------------------------ |
| [diff "tex"] |
| wordRegex = "\\\\[a-zA-Z]+|[{}]|\\\\.|[^\\{}[:space:]]+" |
| ------------------------ |
| |
| A built-in pattern is provided for all languages listed in the |
| previous section. |
| |
| |
| Performing text diffs of binary files |
| ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ |
| |
| Sometimes it is desirable to see the diff of a text-converted |
| version of some binary files. For example, a word processor |
| document can be converted to an ASCII text representation, and |
| the diff of the text shown. Even though this conversion loses |
| some information, the resulting diff is useful for human |
| viewing (but cannot be applied directly). |
| |
| The `textconv` config option is used to define a program for |
| performing such a conversion. The program should take a single |
| argument, the name of a file to convert, and produce the |
| resulting text on stdout. |
| |
| For example, to show the diff of the exif information of a |
| file instead of the binary information (assuming you have the |
| exif tool installed), add the following section to your |
| `$GIT_DIR/config` file (or `$HOME/.gitconfig` file): |
| |
| ------------------------ |
| [diff "jpg"] |
| textconv = exif |
| ------------------------ |
| |
| NOTE: The text conversion is generally a one-way conversion; |
| in this example, we lose the actual image contents and focus |
| just on the text data. This means that diffs generated by |
| textconv are _not_ suitable for applying. For this reason, |
| only `git diff` and the `git log` family of commands (i.e., |
| log, whatchanged, show) will perform text conversion. `git |
| format-patch` will never generate this output. If you want to |
| send somebody a text-converted diff of a binary file (e.g., |
| because it quickly conveys the changes you have made), you |
| should generate it separately and send it as a comment _in |
| addition to_ the usual binary diff that you might send. |
| |
| Because text conversion can be slow, especially when doing a |
| large number of them with `git log -p`, Git provides a mechanism |
| to cache the output and use it in future diffs. To enable |
| caching, set the "cachetextconv" variable in your diff driver's |
| config. For example: |
| |
| ------------------------ |
| [diff "jpg"] |
| textconv = exif |
| cachetextconv = true |
| ------------------------ |
| |
| This will cache the result of running "exif" on each blob |
| indefinitely. If you change the textconv config variable for a |
| diff driver, Git will automatically invalidate the cache entries |
| and re-run the textconv filter. If you want to invalidate the |
| cache manually (e.g., because your version of "exif" was updated |
| and now produces better output), you can remove the cache |
| manually with `git update-ref -d refs/notes/textconv/jpg` (where |
| "jpg" is the name of the diff driver, as in the example above). |
| |
| Choosing textconv versus external diff |
| ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ |
| |
| If you want to show differences between binary or specially-formatted |
| blobs in your repository, you can choose to use either an external diff |
| command, or to use textconv to convert them to a diff-able text format. |
| Which method you choose depends on your exact situation. |
| |
| The advantage of using an external diff command is flexibility. You are |
| not bound to find line-oriented changes, nor is it necessary for the |
| output to resemble unified diff. You are free to locate and report |
| changes in the most appropriate way for your data format. |
| |
| A textconv, by comparison, is much more limiting. You provide a |
| transformation of the data into a line-oriented text format, and Git |
| uses its regular diff tools to generate the output. There are several |
| advantages to choosing this method: |
| |
| 1. Ease of use. It is often much simpler to write a binary to text |
| transformation than it is to perform your own diff. In many cases, |
| existing programs can be used as textconv filters (e.g., exif, |
| odt2txt). |
| |
| 2. Git diff features. By performing only the transformation step |
| yourself, you can still utilize many of Git's diff features, |
| including colorization, word-diff, and combined diffs for merges. |
| |
| 3. Caching. Textconv caching can speed up repeated diffs, such as those |
| you might trigger by running `git log -p`. |
| |
| |
| Marking files as binary |
| ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ |
| |
| Git usually guesses correctly whether a blob contains text or binary |
| data by examining the beginning of the contents. However, sometimes you |
| may want to override its decision, either because a blob contains binary |
| data later in the file, or because the content, while technically |
| composed of text characters, is opaque to a human reader. For example, |
| many postscript files contain only ASCII characters, but produce noisy |
| and meaningless diffs. |
| |
| The simplest way to mark a file as binary is to unset the diff |
| attribute in the `.gitattributes` file: |
| |
| ------------------------ |
| *.ps -diff |
| ------------------------ |
| |
| This will cause Git to generate `Binary files differ` (or a binary |
| patch, if binary patches are enabled) instead of a regular diff. |
| |
| However, one may also want to specify other diff driver attributes. For |
| example, you might want to use `textconv` to convert postscript files to |
| an ASCII representation for human viewing, but otherwise treat them as |
| binary files. You cannot specify both `-diff` and `diff=ps` attributes. |
| The solution is to use the `diff.*.binary` config option: |
| |
| ------------------------ |
| [diff "ps"] |
| textconv = ps2ascii |
| binary = true |
| ------------------------ |
| |
| Performing a three-way merge |
| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ |
| |
| `merge` |
| ^^^^^^^ |
| |
| The attribute `merge` affects how three versions of a file are |
| merged when a file-level merge is necessary during `git merge`, |
| and other commands such as `git revert` and `git cherry-pick`. |
| |
| Set:: |
| |
| Built-in 3-way merge driver is used to merge the |
| contents in a way similar to 'merge' command of `RCS` |
| suite. This is suitable for ordinary text files. |
| |
| Unset:: |
| |
| Take the version from the current branch as the |
| tentative merge result, and declare that the merge has |
| conflicts. This is suitable for binary files that do |
| not have a well-defined merge semantics. |
| |
| Unspecified:: |
| |
| By default, this uses the same built-in 3-way merge |
| driver as is the case when the `merge` attribute is set. |
| However, the `merge.default` configuration variable can name |
| different merge driver to be used with paths for which the |
| `merge` attribute is unspecified. |
| |
| String:: |
| |
| 3-way merge is performed using the specified custom |
| merge driver. The built-in 3-way merge driver can be |
| explicitly specified by asking for "text" driver; the |
| built-in "take the current branch" driver can be |
| requested with "binary". |
| |
| |
| Built-in merge drivers |
| ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ |
| |
| There are a few built-in low-level merge drivers defined that |
| can be asked for via the `merge` attribute. |
| |
| text:: |
| |
| Usual 3-way file level merge for text files. Conflicted |
| regions are marked with conflict markers `<<<<<<<`, |
| `=======` and `>>>>>>>`. The version from your branch |
| appears before the `=======` marker, and the version |
| from the merged branch appears after the `=======` |
| marker. |
| |
| binary:: |
| |
| Keep the version from your branch in the work tree, but |
| leave the path in the conflicted state for the user to |
| sort out. |
| |
| union:: |
| |
| Run 3-way file level merge for text files, but take |
| lines from both versions, instead of leaving conflict |
| markers. This tends to leave the added lines in the |
| resulting file in random order and the user should |
| verify the result. Do not use this if you do not |
| understand the implications. |
| |
| |
| Defining a custom merge driver |
| ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ |
| |
| The definition of a merge driver is done in the `.git/config` |
| file, not in the `gitattributes` file, so strictly speaking this |
| manual page is a wrong place to talk about it. However... |
| |
| To define a custom merge driver `filfre`, add a section to your |
| `$GIT_DIR/config` file (or `$HOME/.gitconfig` file) like this: |
| |
| ---------------------------------------------------------------- |
| [merge "filfre"] |
| name = feel-free merge driver |
| driver = filfre %O %A %B %L %P |
| recursive = binary |
| ---------------------------------------------------------------- |
| |
| The `merge.*.name` variable gives the driver a human-readable |
| name. |
| |
| The `merge.*.driver` variable's value is used to construct a |
| command to run to merge ancestor's version (`%O`), current |
| version (`%A`) and the other branches' version (`%B`). These |
| three tokens are replaced with the names of temporary files that |
| hold the contents of these versions when the command line is |
| built. Additionally, %L will be replaced with the conflict marker |
| size (see below). |
| |
| The merge driver is expected to leave the result of the merge in |
| the file named with `%A` by overwriting it, and exit with zero |
| status if it managed to merge them cleanly, or non-zero if there |
| were conflicts. |
| |
| The `merge.*.recursive` variable specifies what other merge |
| driver to use when the merge driver is called for an internal |
| merge between common ancestors, when there are more than one. |
| When left unspecified, the driver itself is used for both |
| internal merge and the final merge. |
| |
| The merge driver can learn the pathname in which the merged result |
| will be stored via placeholder `%P`. |
| |
| |
| `conflict-marker-size` |
| ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ |
| |
| This attribute controls the length of conflict markers left in |
| the work tree file during a conflicted merge. Only setting to |
| the value to a positive integer has any meaningful effect. |
| |
| For example, this line in `.gitattributes` can be used to tell the merge |
| machinery to leave much longer (instead of the usual 7-character-long) |
| conflict markers when merging the file `Documentation/git-merge.txt` |
| results in a conflict. |
| |
| ------------------------ |
| Documentation/git-merge.txt conflict-marker-size=32 |
| ------------------------ |
| |
| |
| Checking whitespace errors |
| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ |
| |
| `whitespace` |
| ^^^^^^^^^^^^ |
| |
| The `core.whitespace` configuration variable allows you to define what |
| 'diff' and 'apply' should consider whitespace errors for all paths in |
| the project (See linkgit:git-config[1]). This attribute gives you finer |
| control per path. |
| |
| Set:: |
| |
| Notice all types of potential whitespace errors known to Git. |
| The tab width is taken from the value of the `core.whitespace` |
| configuration variable. |
| |
| Unset:: |
| |
| Do not notice anything as error. |
| |
| Unspecified:: |
| |
| Use the value of the `core.whitespace` configuration variable to |
| decide what to notice as error. |
| |
| String:: |
| |
| Specify a comma separate list of common whitespace problems to |
| notice in the same format as the `core.whitespace` configuration |
| variable. |
| |
| |
| Creating an archive |
| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ |
| |
| `export-ignore` |
| ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ |
| |
| Files and directories with the attribute `export-ignore` won't be added to |
| archive files. |
| |
| `export-subst` |
| ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ |
| |
| If the attribute `export-subst` is set for a file then Git will expand |
| several placeholders when adding this file to an archive. The |
| expansion depends on the availability of a commit ID, i.e., if |
| linkgit:git-archive[1] has been given a tree instead of a commit or a |
| tag then no replacement will be done. The placeholders are the same |
| as those for the option `--pretty=format:` of linkgit:git-log[1], |
| except that they need to be wrapped like this: `$Format:PLACEHOLDERS$` |
| in the file. E.g. the string `$Format:%H$` will be replaced by the |
| commit hash. |
| |
| |
| Packing objects |
| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ |
| |
| `delta` |
| ^^^^^^^ |
| |
| Delta compression will not be attempted for blobs for paths with the |
| attribute `delta` set to false. |
| |
| |
| Viewing files in GUI tools |
| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ |
| |
| `encoding` |
| ^^^^^^^^^^ |
| |
| The value of this attribute specifies the character encoding that should |
| be used by GUI tools (e.g. linkgit:gitk[1] and linkgit:git-gui[1]) to |
| display the contents of the relevant file. Note that due to performance |
| considerations linkgit:gitk[1] does not use this attribute unless you |
| manually enable per-file encodings in its options. |
| |
| If this attribute is not set or has an invalid value, the value of the |
| `gui.encoding` configuration variable is used instead |
| (See linkgit:git-config[1]). |
| |
| |
| USING MACRO ATTRIBUTES |
| ---------------------- |
| |
| You do not want any end-of-line conversions applied to, nor textual diffs |
| produced for, any binary file you track. You would need to specify e.g. |
| |
| ------------ |
| *.jpg -text -diff |
| ------------ |
| |
| but that may become cumbersome, when you have many attributes. Using |
| macro attributes, you can define an attribute that, when set, also |
| sets or unsets a number of other attributes at the same time. The |
| system knows a built-in macro attribute, `binary`: |
| |
| ------------ |
| *.jpg binary |
| ------------ |
| |
| Setting the "binary" attribute also unsets the "text" and "diff" |
| attributes as above. Note that macro attributes can only be "Set", |
| though setting one might have the effect of setting or unsetting other |
| attributes or even returning other attributes to the "Unspecified" |
| state. |
| |
| |
| DEFINING MACRO ATTRIBUTES |
| ------------------------- |
| |
| Custom macro attributes can be defined only in top-level gitattributes |
| files (`$GIT_DIR/info/attributes`, the `.gitattributes` file at the |
| top level of the working tree, or the global or system-wide |
| gitattributes files), not in `.gitattributes` files in working tree |
| subdirectories. The built-in macro attribute "binary" is equivalent |
| to: |
| |
| ------------ |
| [attr]binary -diff -merge -text |
| ------------ |
| |
| |
| EXAMPLES |
| -------- |
| |
| If you have these three `gitattributes` file: |
| |
| ---------------------------------------------------------------- |
| (in $GIT_DIR/info/attributes) |
| |
| a* foo !bar -baz |
| |
| (in .gitattributes) |
| abc foo bar baz |
| |
| (in t/.gitattributes) |
| ab* merge=filfre |
| abc -foo -bar |
| *.c frotz |
| ---------------------------------------------------------------- |
| |
| the attributes given to path `t/abc` are computed as follows: |
| |
| 1. By examining `t/.gitattributes` (which is in the same |
| directory as the path in question), Git finds that the first |
| line matches. `merge` attribute is set. It also finds that |
| the second line matches, and attributes `foo` and `bar` |
| are unset. |
| |
| 2. Then it examines `.gitattributes` (which is in the parent |
| directory), and finds that the first line matches, but |
| `t/.gitattributes` file already decided how `merge`, `foo` |
| and `bar` attributes should be given to this path, so it |
| leaves `foo` and `bar` unset. Attribute `baz` is set. |
| |
| 3. Finally it examines `$GIT_DIR/info/attributes`. This file |
| is used to override the in-tree settings. The first line is |
| a match, and `foo` is set, `bar` is reverted to unspecified |
| state, and `baz` is unset. |
| |
| As the result, the attributes assignment to `t/abc` becomes: |
| |
| ---------------------------------------------------------------- |
| foo set to true |
| bar unspecified |
| baz set to false |
| merge set to string value "filfre" |
| frotz unspecified |
| ---------------------------------------------------------------- |
| |
| |
| SEE ALSO |
| -------- |
| linkgit:git-check-attr[1]. |
| |
| GIT |
| --- |
| Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite |