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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).
+is from the path in question, the lower its precedence). Finally
+global and system-wide files are considered (they have the lowest
+precedence).
If you wish to affect only a single repository (i.e., to assign
-attributes to files that are particular to one user's workflow), then
+attributes to files that are particular to
+one user's workflow for that repository), then
attributes should be placed in the `$GIT_DIR/info/attributes` file.
Attributes which should be version-controlled and distributed to other
repositories (i.e., attributes of interest to all users) should go into
-`.gitattributes` files.
+`.gitattributes` files. Attributes that should affect all repositories
+for a single user should be placed in a file specified by the
+`core.attributesfile` configuration option (see linkgit:git-config[1]).
+Attributes for all users on a system should be placed in the
+`$(prefix)/etc/gitattributes` file.
Sometimes you would need to override an setting of an attribute
-for a path to `unspecified` state. This can be done by listing
+for a path to `Unspecified` state. This can be done by listing
the name of the attribute prefixed with an exclamation point `!`.
git stores the contents you prepare in the working tree in the
repository upon 'git add' and 'git commit'.
-`crlf`
+`text`
^^^^^^
-This attribute controls the line-ending convention.
+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.
Set::
- Setting the `crlf` attribute on a path is meant to mark
- the path as a "text" file. 'core.autocrlf' conversion
- takes place without guessing the content type by
- inspection.
+ 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 `crlf` attribute on a path tells git not to
+ 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 normalization. If git decides that the content is
+ text, its line endings are normalized to LF on checkin.
+
Unspecified::
- Unspecified `crlf` attribute tells git to apply the
- `core.autocrlf` conversion when the file content looks
- like text.
+ If the `text` attribute is unspecified, git uses the
+ `core.autocrlf` configuration variable to determine if the
+ file should be converted.
-Set to string value "input"::
+Any other value causes git to act as if `text` has been left
+unspecified.
- This is similar to setting the attribute to `true`, but
- also forces git to act as if `core.autocrlf` is set to
- `input` for the path.
+`eol`
+^^^^^
-Any other value set to `crlf` attribute is ignored and git acts
-as if the attribute is left unspecified.
+This attribute sets a specific line-ending style to be used in the
+working directory. It enables end-of-line normalization without any
+content checks, effectively setting the `text` attribute.
+Set to string value "crlf"::
-The `core.autocrlf` conversion
-^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
+ 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.
+
+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.
+
+------------------------
+*.txt text
+*.vcproj eol=crlf
+*.sh eol=lf
+*.jpg -text
+------------------------
+
+Other source code management systems normalize all text files in their
+repositories, and there are two ways to enable similar automatic
+normalization in git.
-If the configuration variable `core.autocrlf` is false, no
-conversion is done.
+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 changing any attributes.
-When `core.autocrlf` is true, it means that the platform wants
-CRLF line endings for files in the working tree, and you want to
-convert them back to the normal LF line endings when checking
-in to the repository.
+------------------------
+[core]
+ autocrlf = true
+------------------------
+
+This does not force normalization of all 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 interoperate with a source code management system that
+enforces end-of-line normalization, or you simply want all text files
+in your repository to be normalized, you should instead set the `text`
+attribute to "auto" for _all_ files.
+
+------------------------
+* text=auto
+------------------------
+
+This ensures that all files that git considers to be text will have
+normalized (LF) line endings in the repository. The `core.eol`
+configuration variable controls which line endings git will use for
+normalized files in your working directory; the default is to use the
+native line ending for your platform, or CRLF if `core.autocrlf` is
+set.
+
+NOTE: When `text=auto` normalization is enabled in an existing
+repository, any text files containing CRLFs should be normalized. If
+they are not they will be normalized the next time someone tries to
+change them, causing unfortunate misattribution. From a clean working
+directory:
+
+-------------------------------------------------
+$ echo "* text=auto" >>.gitattributes
+$ rm .git/index # Remove the index to force git to
+$ git reset # re-scan the working directory
+$ git status # Show files that will be normalized
+$ git add -u
+$ git add .gitattributes
+$ 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.
-When `core.autocrlf` is set to "input", line endings are
-converted to LF upon checkin, but there is no conversion done
-upon checkout.
+------------------------
+weirdchars.txt text
+------------------------
If `core.safecrlf` is set to "true" or "warn", git verifies if
the conversion is reversible for the current setting of
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.
+
+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
+------------------------
+
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 `crlf` (again, if specified
+specified), and then finally with `text` (again, if specified
and applicable).
In the check-out codepath, the blob content is first converted
-with `crlf`, and then `ident` and fed to `filter`.
+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
- `cpp` suitable for source code in the C and C++ languages.
+- `csharp` suitable for source code in the C# language.
+
+- `fortran` suitable for source code in the Fortran language.
+
- `html` suitable for HTML/XHTML documents.
- `java` suitable for source code in the Java 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.
Customizing word diff
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
-You can customize the rules that `git diff --color-words` uses to
+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
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 is
+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`.
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 does
+ 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 the `merge` attribute is set.
- However, `merge.default` configuration variable can name
- different merge driver to be used for paths to which the
+ 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::
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.
+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
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::
Unspecified::
- Use the value of `core.whitespace` configuration variable to
+ 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 `core.whitespace` configuration
+ notice in the same format as the `core.whitespace` configuration
variable.
(See linkgit:git-config[1]).
-USING ATTRIBUTE MACROS
+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 -crlf -diff
+*.jpg -text -diff
------------
but that may become cumbersome, when you have many attributes. Using
-attribute macros, you can specify groups of attributes set or unset at
-the same time. The system knows a built-in attribute macro, `binary`:
+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
------------
-which is equivalent to the above. Note that the attribute macros can only
-be "Set" (see the above example that sets "binary" macro as if it were an
-ordinary attribute --- setting it in turn unsets "crlf" and "diff").
+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 ATTRIBUTE MACROS
+DEFINING MACRO ATTRIBUTES
-------------------------
-Custom attribute macros can be defined only in the `.gitattributes` file
-at the toplevel (i.e. not in any subdirectory). The built-in attribute
-macro "binary" is equivalent to:
+Custom macro attributes can be defined only in the `.gitattributes`
+file at the toplevel (i.e. not in any subdirectory). The built-in
+macro attribute "binary" is equivalent to:
------------
-[attr]binary -diff -crlf
+[attr]binary -diff -text
------------
----------------------------------------------------------------
+SEE ALSO
+--------
+linkgit:git-check-attr[1].
GIT
---