6 gitattributes - defining attributes per path
10 $GIT_DIR/info/attributes, .gitattributes
16 A `gitattributes` file is a simple text file that gives
17 `attributes` to pathnames.
19 Each line in `gitattributes` file is of form:
21 pattern attr1 attr2 ...
23 That is, a pattern followed by an attributes list,
24 separated by whitespaces. When the pattern matches the
25 path in question, the attributes listed on the line are given to
28 Each attribute can be in one of these states for a given path:
32 The path has the attribute with special value "true";
33 this is specified by listing only the name of the
34 attribute in the attribute list.
38 The path has the attribute with special value "false";
39 this is specified by listing the name of the attribute
40 prefixed with a dash `-` in the attribute list.
44 The path has the attribute with specified string value;
45 this is specified by listing the name of the attribute
46 followed by an equal sign `=` and its value in the
51 No pattern matches the path, and nothing says if
52 the path has or does not have the attribute, the
53 attribute for the path is said to be Unspecified.
55 When more than one pattern matches the path, a later line
56 overrides an earlier line. This overriding is done per
57 attribute. The rules how the pattern matches paths are the
58 same as in `.gitignore` files; see linkgit:gitignore[5].
60 When deciding what attributes are assigned to a path, git
61 consults `$GIT_DIR/info/attributes` file (which has the highest
62 precedence), `.gitattributes` file in the same directory as the
63 path in question, and its parent directories up to the toplevel of the
64 work tree (the further the directory that contains `.gitattributes`
65 is from the path in question, the lower its precedence). Finally
66 global and system-wide files are considered (they have the lowest
69 When the `.gitattributes` file is missing from the work tree, the
70 path in the index is used as a fall-back. During checkout process,
71 `.gitattributes` in the index is used and then the file in the
72 working tree is used as a fall-back.
74 If you wish to affect only a single repository (i.e., to assign
75 attributes to files that are particular to
76 one user's workflow for that repository), then
77 attributes should be placed in the `$GIT_DIR/info/attributes` file.
78 Attributes which should be version-controlled and distributed to other
79 repositories (i.e., attributes of interest to all users) should go into
80 `.gitattributes` files. Attributes that should affect all repositories
81 for a single user should be placed in a file specified by the
82 `core.attributesfile` configuration option (see linkgit:git-config[1]).
83 Its default value is $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/git/attributes. If $XDG_CONFIG_HOME
84 is either not set or empty, $HOME/.config/git/attributes is used instead.
85 Attributes for all users on a system should be placed in the
86 `$(prefix)/etc/gitattributes` file.
88 Sometimes you would need to override an setting of an attribute
89 for a path to `Unspecified` state. This can be done by listing
90 the name of the attribute prefixed with an exclamation point `!`.
96 Certain operations by git can be influenced by assigning
97 particular attributes to a path. Currently, the following
98 operations are attributes-aware.
100 Checking-out and checking-in
101 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
103 These attributes affect how the contents stored in the
104 repository are copied to the working tree files when commands
105 such as 'git checkout' and 'git merge' run. They also affect how
106 git stores the contents you prepare in the working tree in the
107 repository upon 'git add' and 'git commit'.
112 This attribute enables and controls end-of-line normalization. When a
113 text file is normalized, its line endings are converted to LF in the
114 repository. To control what line ending style is used in the working
115 directory, use the `eol` attribute for a single file and the
116 `core.eol` configuration variable for all text files.
120 Setting the `text` attribute on a path enables end-of-line
121 normalization and marks the path as a text file. End-of-line
122 conversion takes place without guessing the content type.
126 Unsetting the `text` attribute on a path tells git not to
127 attempt any end-of-line conversion upon checkin or checkout.
129 Set to string value "auto"::
131 When `text` is set to "auto", the path is marked for automatic
132 end-of-line normalization. If git decides that the content is
133 text, its line endings are normalized to LF on checkin.
137 If the `text` attribute is unspecified, git uses the
138 `core.autocrlf` configuration variable to determine if the
139 file should be converted.
141 Any other value causes git to act as if `text` has been left
147 This attribute sets a specific line-ending style to be used in the
148 working directory. It enables end-of-line normalization without any
149 content checks, effectively setting the `text` attribute.
151 Set to string value "crlf"::
153 This setting forces git to normalize line endings for this
154 file on checkin and convert them to CRLF when the file is
157 Set to string value "lf"::
159 This setting forces git to normalize line endings to LF on
160 checkin and prevents conversion to CRLF when the file is
163 Backwards compatibility with `crlf` attribute
164 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
166 For backwards compatibility, the `crlf` attribute is interpreted as
169 ------------------------
173 ------------------------
175 End-of-line conversion
176 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
178 While git normally leaves file contents alone, it can be configured to
179 normalize line endings to LF in the repository and, optionally, to
180 convert them to CRLF when files are checked out.
182 Here is an example that will make git normalize .txt, .vcproj and .sh
183 files, ensure that .vcproj files have CRLF and .sh files have LF in
184 the working directory, and prevent .jpg files from being normalized
185 regardless of their content.
187 ------------------------
192 ------------------------
194 Other source code management systems normalize all text files in their
195 repositories, and there are two ways to enable similar automatic
196 normalization in git.
198 If you simply want to have CRLF line endings in your working directory
199 regardless of the repository you are working with, you can set the
200 config variable "core.autocrlf" without changing any attributes.
202 ------------------------
205 ------------------------
207 This does not force normalization of all text files, but does ensure
208 that text files that you introduce to the repository have their line
209 endings normalized to LF when they are added, and that files that are
210 already normalized in the repository stay normalized.
212 If you want to interoperate with a source code management system that
213 enforces end-of-line normalization, or you simply want all text files
214 in your repository to be normalized, you should instead set the `text`
215 attribute to "auto" for _all_ files.
217 ------------------------
219 ------------------------
221 This ensures that all files that git considers to be text will have
222 normalized (LF) line endings in the repository. The `core.eol`
223 configuration variable controls which line endings git will use for
224 normalized files in your working directory; the default is to use the
225 native line ending for your platform, or CRLF if `core.autocrlf` is
228 NOTE: When `text=auto` normalization is enabled in an existing
229 repository, any text files containing CRLFs should be normalized. If
230 they are not they will be normalized the next time someone tries to
231 change them, causing unfortunate misattribution. From a clean working
234 -------------------------------------------------
235 $ echo "* text=auto" >>.gitattributes
236 $ rm .git/index # Remove the index to force git to
237 $ git reset # re-scan the working directory
238 $ git status # Show files that will be normalized
240 $ git add .gitattributes
241 $ git commit -m "Introduce end-of-line normalization"
242 -------------------------------------------------
244 If any files that should not be normalized show up in 'git status',
245 unset their `text` attribute before running 'git add -u'.
247 ------------------------
249 ------------------------
251 Conversely, text files that git does not detect can have normalization
254 ------------------------
256 ------------------------
258 If `core.safecrlf` is set to "true" or "warn", git verifies if
259 the conversion is reversible for the current setting of
260 `core.autocrlf`. For "true", git rejects irreversible
261 conversions; for "warn", git only prints a warning but accepts
262 an irreversible conversion. The safety triggers to prevent such
263 a conversion done to the files in the work tree, but there are a
264 few exceptions. Even though...
266 - 'git add' itself does not touch the files in the work tree, the
267 next checkout would, so the safety triggers;
269 - 'git apply' to update a text file with a patch does touch the files
270 in the work tree, but the operation is about text files and CRLF
271 conversion is about fixing the line ending inconsistencies, so the
272 safety does not trigger;
274 - 'git diff' itself does not touch the files in the work tree, it is
275 often run to inspect the changes you intend to next 'git add'. To
276 catch potential problems early, safety triggers.
282 When the attribute `ident` is set for a path, git replaces
283 `$Id$` in the blob object with `$Id:`, followed by the
284 40-character hexadecimal blob object name, followed by a dollar
285 sign `$` upon checkout. Any byte sequence that begins with
286 `$Id:` and ends with `$` in the worktree file is replaced
287 with `$Id$` upon check-in.
293 A `filter` attribute can be set to a string value that names a
294 filter driver specified in the configuration.
296 A filter driver consists of a `clean` command and a `smudge`
297 command, either of which can be left unspecified. Upon
298 checkout, when the `smudge` command is specified, the command is
299 fed the blob object from its standard input, and its standard
300 output is used to update the worktree file. Similarly, the
301 `clean` command is used to convert the contents of worktree file
304 One use of the content filtering is to massage the content into a shape
305 that is more convenient for the platform, filesystem, and the user to use.
306 For this mode of operation, the key phrase here is "more convenient" and
307 not "turning something unusable into usable". In other words, the intent
308 is that if someone unsets the filter driver definition, or does not have
309 the appropriate filter program, the project should still be usable.
311 Another use of the content filtering is to store the content that cannot
312 be directly used in the repository (e.g. a UUID that refers to the true
313 content stored outside git, or an encrypted content) and turn it into a
314 usable form upon checkout (e.g. download the external content, or decrypt
315 the encrypted content).
317 These two filters behave differently, and by default, a filter is taken as
318 the former, massaging the contents into more convenient shape. A missing
319 filter driver definition in the config, or a filter driver that exits with
320 a non-zero status, is not an error but makes the filter a no-op passthru.
322 You can declare that a filter turns a content that by itself is unusable
323 into a usable content by setting the filter.<driver>.required configuration
326 For example, in .gitattributes, you would assign the `filter`
329 ------------------------
331 ------------------------
333 Then you would define a "filter.indent.clean" and "filter.indent.smudge"
334 configuration in your .git/config to specify a pair of commands to
335 modify the contents of C programs when the source files are checked
336 in ("clean" is run) and checked out (no change is made because the
339 ------------------------
343 ------------------------
345 For best results, `clean` should not alter its output further if it is
346 run twice ("clean->clean" should be equivalent to "clean"), and
347 multiple `smudge` commands should not alter `clean`'s output
348 ("smudge->smudge->clean" should be equivalent to "clean"). See the
349 section on merging below.
351 The "indent" filter is well-behaved in this regard: it will not modify
352 input that is already correctly indented. In this case, the lack of a
353 smudge filter means that the clean filter _must_ accept its own output
354 without modifying it.
356 If a filter _must_ succeed in order to make the stored contents usable,
357 you can declare that the filter is `required`, in the configuration:
359 ------------------------
361 clean = openssl enc ...
362 smudge = openssl enc -d ...
364 ------------------------
366 Sequence "%f" on the filter command line is replaced with the name of
367 the file the filter is working on. A filter might use this in keyword
368 substitution. For example:
370 ------------------------
372 clean = git-p4-filter --clean %f
373 smudge = git-p4-filter --smudge %f
374 ------------------------
377 Interaction between checkin/checkout attributes
378 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
380 In the check-in codepath, the worktree file is first converted
381 with `filter` driver (if specified and corresponding driver
382 defined), then the result is processed with `ident` (if
383 specified), and then finally with `text` (again, if specified
386 In the check-out codepath, the blob content is first converted
387 with `text`, and then `ident` and fed to `filter`.
390 Merging branches with differing checkin/checkout attributes
391 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
393 If you have added attributes to a file that cause the canonical
394 repository format for that file to change, such as adding a
395 clean/smudge filter or text/eol/ident attributes, merging anything
396 where the attribute is not in place would normally cause merge
399 To prevent these unnecessary merge conflicts, git can be told to run a
400 virtual check-out and check-in of all three stages of a file when
401 resolving a three-way merge by setting the `merge.renormalize`
402 configuration variable. This prevents changes caused by check-in
403 conversion from causing spurious merge conflicts when a converted file
404 is merged with an unconverted file.
406 As long as a "smudge->clean" results in the same output as a "clean"
407 even on files that are already smudged, this strategy will
408 automatically resolve all filter-related conflicts. Filters that do
409 not act in this way may cause additional merge conflicts that must be
419 The attribute `diff` affects how 'git' generates diffs for particular
420 files. It can tell git whether to generate a textual patch for the path
421 or to treat the path as a binary file. It can also affect what line is
422 shown on the hunk header `@@ -k,l +n,m @@` line, tell git to use an
423 external command to generate the diff, or ask git to convert binary
424 files to a text format before generating the diff.
428 A path to which the `diff` attribute is set is treated
429 as text, even when they contain byte values that
430 normally never appear in text files, such as NUL.
434 A path to which the `diff` attribute is unset will
435 generate `Binary files differ` (or a binary patch, if
436 binary patches are enabled).
440 A path to which the `diff` attribute is unspecified
441 first gets its contents inspected, and if it looks like
442 text, it is treated as text. Otherwise it would
443 generate `Binary files differ`.
447 Diff is shown using the specified diff driver. Each driver may
448 specify one or more options, as described in the following
449 section. The options for the diff driver "foo" are defined
450 by the configuration variables in the "diff.foo" section of the
454 Defining an external diff driver
455 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
457 The definition of a diff driver is done in `gitconfig`, not
458 `gitattributes` file, so strictly speaking this manual page is a
459 wrong place to talk about it. However...
461 To define an external diff driver `jcdiff`, add a section to your
462 `$GIT_DIR/config` file (or `$HOME/.gitconfig` file) like this:
464 ----------------------------------------------------------------
467 ----------------------------------------------------------------
469 When git needs to show you a diff for the path with `diff`
470 attribute set to `jcdiff`, it calls the command you specified
471 with the above configuration, i.e. `j-c-diff`, with 7
472 parameters, just like `GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF` program is called.
473 See linkgit:git[1] for details.
476 Defining a custom hunk-header
477 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
479 Each group of changes (called a "hunk") in the textual diff output
480 is prefixed with a line of the form:
484 This is called a 'hunk header'. The "TEXT" portion is by default a line
485 that begins with an alphabet, an underscore or a dollar sign; this
486 matches what GNU 'diff -p' output uses. This default selection however
487 is not suited for some contents, and you can use a customized pattern
490 First, in .gitattributes, you would assign the `diff` attribute
493 ------------------------
495 ------------------------
497 Then, you would define a "diff.tex.xfuncname" configuration to
498 specify a regular expression that matches a line that you would
499 want to appear as the hunk header "TEXT". Add a section to your
500 `$GIT_DIR/config` file (or `$HOME/.gitconfig` file) like this:
502 ------------------------
504 xfuncname = "^(\\\\(sub)*section\\{.*)$"
505 ------------------------
507 Note. A single level of backslashes are eaten by the
508 configuration file parser, so you would need to double the
509 backslashes; the pattern above picks a line that begins with a
510 backslash, and zero or more occurrences of `sub` followed by
511 `section` followed by open brace, to the end of line.
513 There are a few built-in patterns to make this easier, and `tex`
514 is one of them, so you do not have to write the above in your
515 configuration file (you still need to enable this with the
516 attribute mechanism, via `.gitattributes`). The following built in
517 patterns are available:
519 - `bibtex` suitable for files with BibTeX coded references.
521 - `cpp` suitable for source code in the C and C++ languages.
523 - `csharp` suitable for source code in the C# language.
525 - `fortran` suitable for source code in the Fortran language.
527 - `html` suitable for HTML/XHTML documents.
529 - `java` suitable for source code in the Java language.
531 - `matlab` suitable for source code in the MATLAB language.
533 - `objc` suitable for source code in the Objective-C language.
535 - `pascal` suitable for source code in the Pascal/Delphi language.
537 - `perl` suitable for source code in the Perl language.
539 - `php` suitable for source code in the PHP language.
541 - `python` suitable for source code in the Python language.
543 - `ruby` suitable for source code in the Ruby language.
545 - `tex` suitable for source code for LaTeX documents.
548 Customizing word diff
549 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
551 You can customize the rules that `git diff --word-diff` uses to
552 split words in a line, by specifying an appropriate regular expression
553 in the "diff.*.wordRegex" configuration variable. For example, in TeX
554 a backslash followed by a sequence of letters forms a command, but
555 several such commands can be run together without intervening
556 whitespace. To separate them, use a regular expression in your
557 `$GIT_DIR/config` file (or `$HOME/.gitconfig` file) like this:
559 ------------------------
561 wordRegex = "\\\\[a-zA-Z]+|[{}]|\\\\.|[^\\{}[:space:]]+"
562 ------------------------
564 A built-in pattern is provided for all languages listed in the
568 Performing text diffs of binary files
569 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
571 Sometimes it is desirable to see the diff of a text-converted
572 version of some binary files. For example, a word processor
573 document can be converted to an ASCII text representation, and
574 the diff of the text shown. Even though this conversion loses
575 some information, the resulting diff is useful for human
576 viewing (but cannot be applied directly).
578 The `textconv` config option is used to define a program for
579 performing such a conversion. The program should take a single
580 argument, the name of a file to convert, and produce the
581 resulting text on stdout.
583 For example, to show the diff of the exif information of a
584 file instead of the binary information (assuming you have the
585 exif tool installed), add the following section to your
586 `$GIT_DIR/config` file (or `$HOME/.gitconfig` file):
588 ------------------------
591 ------------------------
593 NOTE: The text conversion is generally a one-way conversion;
594 in this example, we lose the actual image contents and focus
595 just on the text data. This means that diffs generated by
596 textconv are _not_ suitable for applying. For this reason,
597 only `git diff` and the `git log` family of commands (i.e.,
598 log, whatchanged, show) will perform text conversion. `git
599 format-patch` will never generate this output. If you want to
600 send somebody a text-converted diff of a binary file (e.g.,
601 because it quickly conveys the changes you have made), you
602 should generate it separately and send it as a comment _in
603 addition to_ the usual binary diff that you might send.
605 Because text conversion can be slow, especially when doing a
606 large number of them with `git log -p`, git provides a mechanism
607 to cache the output and use it in future diffs. To enable
608 caching, set the "cachetextconv" variable in your diff driver's
611 ------------------------
615 ------------------------
617 This will cache the result of running "exif" on each blob
618 indefinitely. If you change the textconv config variable for a
619 diff driver, git will automatically invalidate the cache entries
620 and re-run the textconv filter. If you want to invalidate the
621 cache manually (e.g., because your version of "exif" was updated
622 and now produces better output), you can remove the cache
623 manually with `git update-ref -d refs/notes/textconv/jpg` (where
624 "jpg" is the name of the diff driver, as in the example above).
626 Choosing textconv versus external diff
627 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
629 If you want to show differences between binary or specially-formatted
630 blobs in your repository, you can choose to use either an external diff
631 command, or to use textconv to convert them to a diff-able text format.
632 Which method you choose depends on your exact situation.
634 The advantage of using an external diff command is flexibility. You are
635 not bound to find line-oriented changes, nor is it necessary for the
636 output to resemble unified diff. You are free to locate and report
637 changes in the most appropriate way for your data format.
639 A textconv, by comparison, is much more limiting. You provide a
640 transformation of the data into a line-oriented text format, and git
641 uses its regular diff tools to generate the output. There are several
642 advantages to choosing this method:
644 1. Ease of use. It is often much simpler to write a binary to text
645 transformation than it is to perform your own diff. In many cases,
646 existing programs can be used as textconv filters (e.g., exif,
649 2. Git diff features. By performing only the transformation step
650 yourself, you can still utilize many of git's diff features,
651 including colorization, word-diff, and combined diffs for merges.
653 3. Caching. Textconv caching can speed up repeated diffs, such as those
654 you might trigger by running `git log -p`.
657 Marking files as binary
658 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
660 Git usually guesses correctly whether a blob contains text or binary
661 data by examining the beginning of the contents. However, sometimes you
662 may want to override its decision, either because a blob contains binary
663 data later in the file, or because the content, while technically
664 composed of text characters, is opaque to a human reader. For example,
665 many postscript files contain only ascii characters, but produce noisy
666 and meaningless diffs.
668 The simplest way to mark a file as binary is to unset the diff
669 attribute in the `.gitattributes` file:
671 ------------------------
673 ------------------------
675 This will cause git to generate `Binary files differ` (or a binary
676 patch, if binary patches are enabled) instead of a regular diff.
678 However, one may also want to specify other diff driver attributes. For
679 example, you might want to use `textconv` to convert postscript files to
680 an ascii representation for human viewing, but otherwise treat them as
681 binary files. You cannot specify both `-diff` and `diff=ps` attributes.
682 The solution is to use the `diff.*.binary` config option:
684 ------------------------
688 ------------------------
690 Performing a three-way merge
691 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
696 The attribute `merge` affects how three versions of a file are
697 merged when a file-level merge is necessary during `git merge`,
698 and other commands such as `git revert` and `git cherry-pick`.
702 Built-in 3-way merge driver is used to merge the
703 contents in a way similar to 'merge' command of `RCS`
704 suite. This is suitable for ordinary text files.
708 Take the version from the current branch as the
709 tentative merge result, and declare that the merge has
710 conflicts. This is suitable for binary files that do
711 not have a well-defined merge semantics.
715 By default, this uses the same built-in 3-way merge
716 driver as is the case when the `merge` attribute is set.
717 However, the `merge.default` configuration variable can name
718 different merge driver to be used with paths for which the
719 `merge` attribute is unspecified.
723 3-way merge is performed using the specified custom
724 merge driver. The built-in 3-way merge driver can be
725 explicitly specified by asking for "text" driver; the
726 built-in "take the current branch" driver can be
727 requested with "binary".
730 Built-in merge drivers
731 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
733 There are a few built-in low-level merge drivers defined that
734 can be asked for via the `merge` attribute.
738 Usual 3-way file level merge for text files. Conflicted
739 regions are marked with conflict markers `<<<<<<<`,
740 `=======` and `>>>>>>>`. The version from your branch
741 appears before the `=======` marker, and the version
742 from the merged branch appears after the `=======`
747 Keep the version from your branch in the work tree, but
748 leave the path in the conflicted state for the user to
753 Run 3-way file level merge for text files, but take
754 lines from both versions, instead of leaving conflict
755 markers. This tends to leave the added lines in the
756 resulting file in random order and the user should
757 verify the result. Do not use this if you do not
758 understand the implications.
761 Defining a custom merge driver
762 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
764 The definition of a merge driver is done in the `.git/config`
765 file, not in the `gitattributes` file, so strictly speaking this
766 manual page is a wrong place to talk about it. However...
768 To define a custom merge driver `filfre`, add a section to your
769 `$GIT_DIR/config` file (or `$HOME/.gitconfig` file) like this:
771 ----------------------------------------------------------------
773 name = feel-free merge driver
774 driver = filfre %O %A %B
776 ----------------------------------------------------------------
778 The `merge.*.name` variable gives the driver a human-readable
781 The `merge.*.driver` variable's value is used to construct a
782 command to run to merge ancestor's version (`%O`), current
783 version (`%A`) and the other branches' version (`%B`). These
784 three tokens are replaced with the names of temporary files that
785 hold the contents of these versions when the command line is
786 built. Additionally, %L will be replaced with the conflict marker
789 The merge driver is expected to leave the result of the merge in
790 the file named with `%A` by overwriting it, and exit with zero
791 status if it managed to merge them cleanly, or non-zero if there
794 The `merge.*.recursive` variable specifies what other merge
795 driver to use when the merge driver is called for an internal
796 merge between common ancestors, when there are more than one.
797 When left unspecified, the driver itself is used for both
798 internal merge and the final merge.
801 `conflict-marker-size`
802 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
804 This attribute controls the length of conflict markers left in
805 the work tree file during a conflicted merge. Only setting to
806 the value to a positive integer has any meaningful effect.
808 For example, this line in `.gitattributes` can be used to tell the merge
809 machinery to leave much longer (instead of the usual 7-character-long)
810 conflict markers when merging the file `Documentation/git-merge.txt`
811 results in a conflict.
813 ------------------------
814 Documentation/git-merge.txt conflict-marker-size=32
815 ------------------------
818 Checking whitespace errors
819 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
824 The `core.whitespace` configuration variable allows you to define what
825 'diff' and 'apply' should consider whitespace errors for all paths in
826 the project (See linkgit:git-config[1]). This attribute gives you finer
831 Notice all types of potential whitespace errors known to git.
832 The tab width is taken from the value of the `core.whitespace`
833 configuration variable.
837 Do not notice anything as error.
841 Use the value of the `core.whitespace` configuration variable to
842 decide what to notice as error.
846 Specify a comma separate list of common whitespace problems to
847 notice in the same format as the `core.whitespace` configuration
857 Files and directories with the attribute `export-ignore` won't be added to
863 If the attribute `export-subst` is set for a file then git will expand
864 several placeholders when adding this file to an archive. The
865 expansion depends on the availability of a commit ID, i.e., if
866 linkgit:git-archive[1] has been given a tree instead of a commit or a
867 tag then no replacement will be done. The placeholders are the same
868 as those for the option `--pretty=format:` of linkgit:git-log[1],
869 except that they need to be wrapped like this: `$Format:PLACEHOLDERS$`
870 in the file. E.g. the string `$Format:%H$` will be replaced by the
880 Delta compression will not be attempted for blobs for paths with the
881 attribute `delta` set to false.
884 Viewing files in GUI tools
885 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
890 The value of this attribute specifies the character encoding that should
891 be used by GUI tools (e.g. linkgit:gitk[1] and linkgit:git-gui[1]) to
892 display the contents of the relevant file. Note that due to performance
893 considerations linkgit:gitk[1] does not use this attribute unless you
894 manually enable per-file encodings in its options.
896 If this attribute is not set or has an invalid value, the value of the
897 `gui.encoding` configuration variable is used instead
898 (See linkgit:git-config[1]).
901 USING MACRO ATTRIBUTES
902 ----------------------
904 You do not want any end-of-line conversions applied to, nor textual diffs
905 produced for, any binary file you track. You would need to specify e.g.
911 but that may become cumbersome, when you have many attributes. Using
912 macro attributes, you can define an attribute that, when set, also
913 sets or unsets a number of other attributes at the same time. The
914 system knows a built-in macro attribute, `binary`:
920 Setting the "binary" attribute also unsets the "text" and "diff"
921 attributes as above. Note that macro attributes can only be "Set",
922 though setting one might have the effect of setting or unsetting other
923 attributes or even returning other attributes to the "Unspecified"
927 DEFINING MACRO ATTRIBUTES
928 -------------------------
930 Custom macro attributes can be defined only in the `.gitattributes`
931 file at the toplevel (i.e. not in any subdirectory). The built-in
932 macro attribute "binary" is equivalent to:
935 [attr]binary -diff -merge -text
942 If you have these three `gitattributes` file:
944 ----------------------------------------------------------------
945 (in $GIT_DIR/info/attributes)
952 (in t/.gitattributes)
956 ----------------------------------------------------------------
958 the attributes given to path `t/abc` are computed as follows:
960 1. By examining `t/.gitattributes` (which is in the same
961 directory as the path in question), git finds that the first
962 line matches. `merge` attribute is set. It also finds that
963 the second line matches, and attributes `foo` and `bar`
966 2. Then it examines `.gitattributes` (which is in the parent
967 directory), and finds that the first line matches, but
968 `t/.gitattributes` file already decided how `merge`, `foo`
969 and `bar` attributes should be given to this path, so it
970 leaves `foo` and `bar` unset. Attribute `baz` is set.
972 3. Finally it examines `$GIT_DIR/info/attributes`. This file
973 is used to override the in-tree settings. The first line is
974 a match, and `foo` is set, `bar` is reverted to unspecified
975 state, and `baz` is unset.
977 As the result, the attributes assignment to `t/abc` becomes:
979 ----------------------------------------------------------------
983 merge set to string value "filfre"
985 ----------------------------------------------------------------
990 linkgit:git-check-attr[1].
994 Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite