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).
67 If you wish to affect only a single repository (i.e., to assign
68 attributes to files that are particular to one user's workflow), then
69 attributes should be placed in the `$GIT_DIR/info/attributes` file.
70 Attributes which should be version-controlled and distributed to other
71 repositories (i.e., attributes of interest to all users) should go into
72 `.gitattributes` files.
74 Sometimes you would need to override an setting of an attribute
75 for a path to `unspecified` state. This can be done by listing
76 the name of the attribute prefixed with an exclamation point `!`.
82 Certain operations by git can be influenced by assigning
83 particular attributes to a path. Currently, the following
84 operations are attributes-aware.
86 Checking-out and checking-in
87 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
89 These attributes affect how the contents stored in the
90 repository are copied to the working tree files when commands
91 such as 'git checkout' and 'git merge' run. They also affect how
92 git stores the contents you prepare in the working tree in the
93 repository upon 'git add' and 'git commit'.
98 This attribute enables and controls end-of-line normalization. When a
99 text file is normalized, its line endings are converted to LF in the
100 repository. To control what line ending style is used in the working
101 directory, use the `eol` attribute for a single file and the
102 `core.eol` configuration variable for all text files.
106 Setting the `text` attribute on a path enables end-of-line
107 normalization and marks the path as a text file. End-of-line
108 conversion takes place without guessing the content type.
112 Unsetting the `text` attribute on a path tells git not to
113 attempt any end-of-line conversion upon checkin or checkout.
115 Set to string value "auto"::
117 When `text` is set to "auto", the path is marked for automatic
118 end-of-line normalization. If git decides that the content is
119 text, its line endings are normalized to LF on checkin.
123 If the `text` attribute is unspecified, git uses the
124 `core.autocrlf` configuration variable to determine if the
125 file should be converted.
127 Any other value causes git to act as if `text` has been left
133 This attribute sets a specific line-ending style to be used in the
134 working directory. It enables end-of-line normalization without any
135 content checks, effectively setting the `text` attribute.
137 Set to string value "crlf"::
139 This setting forces git to normalize line endings for this
140 file on checkin and convert them to CRLF when the file is
143 Set to string value "lf"::
145 This setting forces git to normalize line endings to LF on
146 checkin and prevents conversion to CRLF when the file is
149 Backwards compatibility with `crlf` attribute
150 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
152 For backwards compatibility, the `crlf` attribute is interpreted as
155 ------------------------
159 ------------------------
161 End-of-line conversion
162 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
164 While git normally leaves file contents alone, it can be configured to
165 normalize line endings to LF in the repository and, optionally, to
166 convert them to CRLF when files are checked out.
168 Here is an example that will make git normalize .txt, .vcproj and .sh
169 files, ensure that .vcproj files have CRLF and .sh files have LF in
170 the working directory, and prevent .jpg files from being normalized
171 regardless of their content.
173 ------------------------
178 ------------------------
180 Other source code management systems normalize all text files in their
181 repositories, and there are two ways to enable similar automatic
182 normalization in git.
184 If you simply want to have CRLF line endings in your working directory
185 regardless of the repository you are working with, you can set the
186 config variable "core.autocrlf" without changing any attributes.
188 ------------------------
191 ------------------------
193 This does not force normalization of all text files, but does ensure
194 that text files that you introduce to the repository have their line
195 endings normalized to LF when they are added, and that files that are
196 already normalized in the repository stay normalized.
198 If you want to interoperate with a source code management system that
199 enforces end-of-line normalization, or you simply want all text files
200 in your repository to be normalized, you should instead set the `text`
201 attribute to "auto" for _all_ files.
203 ------------------------
205 ------------------------
207 This ensures that all files that git considers to be text will have
208 normalized (LF) line endings in the repository. The `core.eol`
209 configuration variable controls which line endings git will use for
210 normalized files in your working directory; the default is to use the
211 native line ending for your platform, or CRLF if `core.autocrlf` is
214 NOTE: When `text=auto` normalization is enabled in an existing
215 repository, any text files containing CRLFs should be normalized. If
216 they are not they will be normalized the next time someone tries to
217 change them, causing unfortunate misattribution. From a clean working
220 -------------------------------------------------
221 $ echo "* text=auto" >>.gitattributes
222 $ rm .git/index # Remove the index to force git to
223 $ git reset # re-scan the working directory
224 $ git status # Show files that will be normalized
226 $ git add .gitattributes
227 $ git commit -m "Introduce end-of-line normalization"
228 -------------------------------------------------
230 If any files that should not be normalized show up in 'git status',
231 unset their `text` attribute before running 'git add -u'.
233 ------------------------
235 ------------------------
237 Conversely, text files that git does not detect can have normalization
240 ------------------------
242 ------------------------
244 If `core.safecrlf` is set to "true" or "warn", git verifies if
245 the conversion is reversible for the current setting of
246 `core.autocrlf`. For "true", git rejects irreversible
247 conversions; for "warn", git only prints a warning but accepts
248 an irreversible conversion. The safety triggers to prevent such
249 a conversion done to the files in the work tree, but there are a
250 few exceptions. Even though...
252 - 'git add' itself does not touch the files in the work tree, the
253 next checkout would, so the safety triggers;
255 - 'git apply' to update a text file with a patch does touch the files
256 in the work tree, but the operation is about text files and CRLF
257 conversion is about fixing the line ending inconsistencies, so the
258 safety does not trigger;
260 - 'git diff' itself does not touch the files in the work tree, it is
261 often run to inspect the changes you intend to next 'git add'. To
262 catch potential problems early, safety triggers.
268 When the attribute `ident` is set for a path, git replaces
269 `$Id$` in the blob object with `$Id:`, followed by the
270 40-character hexadecimal blob object name, followed by a dollar
271 sign `$` upon checkout. Any byte sequence that begins with
272 `$Id:` and ends with `$` in the worktree file is replaced
273 with `$Id$` upon check-in.
279 A `filter` attribute can be set to a string value that names a
280 filter driver specified in the configuration.
282 A filter driver consists of a `clean` command and a `smudge`
283 command, either of which can be left unspecified. Upon
284 checkout, when the `smudge` command is specified, the command is
285 fed the blob object from its standard input, and its standard
286 output is used to update the worktree file. Similarly, the
287 `clean` command is used to convert the contents of worktree file
290 A missing filter driver definition in the config is not an error
291 but makes the filter a no-op passthru.
293 The content filtering is done to massage the content into a
294 shape that is more convenient for the platform, filesystem, and
295 the user to use. The key phrase here is "more convenient" and not
296 "turning something unusable into usable". In other words, the
297 intent is that if someone unsets the filter driver definition,
298 or does not have the appropriate filter program, the project
299 should still be usable.
301 For example, in .gitattributes, you would assign the `filter`
304 ------------------------
306 ------------------------
308 Then you would define a "filter.indent.clean" and "filter.indent.smudge"
309 configuration in your .git/config to specify a pair of commands to
310 modify the contents of C programs when the source files are checked
311 in ("clean" is run) and checked out (no change is made because the
314 ------------------------
318 ------------------------
320 For best results, `clean` should not alter its output further if it is
321 run twice ("clean->clean" should be equivalent to "clean"), and
322 multiple `smudge` commands should not alter `clean`'s output
323 ("smudge->smudge->clean" should be equivalent to "clean"). See the
324 section on merging below.
326 The "indent" filter is well-behaved in this regard: it will not modify
327 input that is already correctly indented. In this case, the lack of a
328 smudge filter means that the clean filter _must_ accept its own output
329 without modifying it.
332 Interaction between checkin/checkout attributes
333 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
335 In the check-in codepath, the worktree file is first converted
336 with `filter` driver (if specified and corresponding driver
337 defined), then the result is processed with `ident` (if
338 specified), and then finally with `text` (again, if specified
341 In the check-out codepath, the blob content is first converted
342 with `text`, and then `ident` and fed to `filter`.
345 Merging branches with differing checkin/checkout attributes
346 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
348 If you have added attributes to a file that cause the canonical
349 repository format for that file to change, such as adding a
350 clean/smudge filter or text/eol/ident attributes, merging anything
351 where the attribute is not in place would normally cause merge
354 To prevent these unnecessary merge conflicts, git can be told to run a
355 virtual check-out and check-in of all three stages of a file when
356 resolving a three-way merge by setting the `merge.renormalize`
357 configuration variable. This prevents changes caused by check-in
358 conversion from causing spurious merge conflicts when a converted file
359 is merged with an unconverted file.
361 As long as a "smudge->clean" results in the same output as a "clean"
362 even on files that are already smudged, this strategy will
363 automatically resolve all filter-related conflicts. Filters that do
364 not act in this way may cause additional merge conflicts that must be
374 The attribute `diff` affects how 'git' generates diffs for particular
375 files. It can tell git whether to generate a textual patch for the path
376 or to treat the path as a binary file. It can also affect what line is
377 shown on the hunk header `@@ -k,l +n,m @@` line, tell git to use an
378 external command to generate the diff, or ask git to convert binary
379 files to a text format before generating the diff.
383 A path to which the `diff` attribute is set is treated
384 as text, even when they contain byte values that
385 normally never appear in text files, such as NUL.
389 A path to which the `diff` attribute is unset will
390 generate `Binary files differ` (or a binary patch, if
391 binary patches are enabled).
395 A path to which the `diff` attribute is unspecified
396 first gets its contents inspected, and if it looks like
397 text, it is treated as text. Otherwise it would
398 generate `Binary files differ`.
402 Diff is shown using the specified diff driver. Each driver may
403 specify one or more options, as described in the following
404 section. The options for the diff driver "foo" are defined
405 by the configuration variables in the "diff.foo" section of the
409 Defining an external diff driver
410 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
412 The definition of a diff driver is done in `gitconfig`, not
413 `gitattributes` file, so strictly speaking this manual page is a
414 wrong place to talk about it. However...
416 To define an external diff driver `jcdiff`, add a section to your
417 `$GIT_DIR/config` file (or `$HOME/.gitconfig` file) like this:
419 ----------------------------------------------------------------
422 ----------------------------------------------------------------
424 When git needs to show you a diff for the path with `diff`
425 attribute set to `jcdiff`, it calls the command you specified
426 with the above configuration, i.e. `j-c-diff`, with 7
427 parameters, just like `GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF` program is called.
428 See linkgit:git[1] for details.
431 Defining a custom hunk-header
432 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
434 Each group of changes (called a "hunk") in the textual diff output
435 is prefixed with a line of the form:
439 This is called a 'hunk header'. The "TEXT" portion is by default a line
440 that begins with an alphabet, an underscore or a dollar sign; this
441 matches what GNU 'diff -p' output uses. This default selection however
442 is not suited for some contents, and you can use a customized pattern
445 First, in .gitattributes, you would assign the `diff` attribute
448 ------------------------
450 ------------------------
452 Then, you would define a "diff.tex.xfuncname" configuration to
453 specify a regular expression that matches a line that you would
454 want to appear as the hunk header "TEXT". Add a section to your
455 `$GIT_DIR/config` file (or `$HOME/.gitconfig` file) like this:
457 ------------------------
459 xfuncname = "^(\\\\(sub)*section\\{.*)$"
460 ------------------------
462 Note. A single level of backslashes are eaten by the
463 configuration file parser, so you would need to double the
464 backslashes; the pattern above picks a line that begins with a
465 backslash, and zero or more occurrences of `sub` followed by
466 `section` followed by open brace, to the end of line.
468 There are a few built-in patterns to make this easier, and `tex`
469 is one of them, so you do not have to write the above in your
470 configuration file (you still need to enable this with the
471 attribute mechanism, via `.gitattributes`). The following built in
472 patterns are available:
474 - `bibtex` suitable for files with BibTeX coded references.
476 - `cpp` suitable for source code in the C and C++ languages.
478 - `html` suitable for HTML/XHTML documents.
480 - `java` suitable for source code in the Java language.
482 - `objc` suitable for source code in the Objective-C language.
484 - `pascal` suitable for source code in the Pascal/Delphi language.
486 - `php` suitable for source code in the PHP language.
488 - `python` suitable for source code in the Python language.
490 - `ruby` suitable for source code in the Ruby language.
492 - `tex` suitable for source code for LaTeX documents.
495 Customizing word diff
496 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
498 You can customize the rules that `git diff --word-diff` uses to
499 split words in a line, by specifying an appropriate regular expression
500 in the "diff.*.wordRegex" configuration variable. For example, in TeX
501 a backslash followed by a sequence of letters forms a command, but
502 several such commands can be run together without intervening
503 whitespace. To separate them, use a regular expression in your
504 `$GIT_DIR/config` file (or `$HOME/.gitconfig` file) like this:
506 ------------------------
508 wordRegex = "\\\\[a-zA-Z]+|[{}]|\\\\.|[^\\{}[:space:]]+"
509 ------------------------
511 A built-in pattern is provided for all languages listed in the
515 Performing text diffs of binary files
516 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
518 Sometimes it is desirable to see the diff of a text-converted
519 version of some binary files. For example, a word processor
520 document can be converted to an ASCII text representation, and
521 the diff of the text shown. Even though this conversion loses
522 some information, the resulting diff is useful for human
523 viewing (but cannot be applied directly).
525 The `textconv` config option is used to define a program for
526 performing such a conversion. The program should take a single
527 argument, the name of a file to convert, and produce the
528 resulting text on stdout.
530 For example, to show the diff of the exif information of a
531 file instead of the binary information (assuming you have the
532 exif tool installed), add the following section to your
533 `$GIT_DIR/config` file (or `$HOME/.gitconfig` file):
535 ------------------------
538 ------------------------
540 NOTE: The text conversion is generally a one-way conversion;
541 in this example, we lose the actual image contents and focus
542 just on the text data. This means that diffs generated by
543 textconv are _not_ suitable for applying. For this reason,
544 only `git diff` and the `git log` family of commands (i.e.,
545 log, whatchanged, show) will perform text conversion. `git
546 format-patch` will never generate this output. If you want to
547 send somebody a text-converted diff of a binary file (e.g.,
548 because it quickly conveys the changes you have made), you
549 should generate it separately and send it as a comment _in
550 addition to_ the usual binary diff that you might send.
552 Because text conversion can be slow, especially when doing a
553 large number of them with `git log -p`, git provides a mechanism
554 to cache the output and use it in future diffs. To enable
555 caching, set the "cachetextconv" variable in your diff driver's
558 ------------------------
562 ------------------------
564 This will cache the result of running "exif" on each blob
565 indefinitely. If you change the textconv config variable for a
566 diff driver, git will automatically invalidate the cache entries
567 and re-run the textconv filter. If you want to invalidate the
568 cache manually (e.g., because your version of "exif" was updated
569 and now produces better output), you can remove the cache
570 manually with `git update-ref -d refs/notes/textconv/jpg` (where
571 "jpg" is the name of the diff driver, as in the example above).
573 Performing a three-way merge
574 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
579 The attribute `merge` affects how three versions of a file is
580 merged when a file-level merge is necessary during `git merge`,
581 and other commands such as `git revert` and `git cherry-pick`.
585 Built-in 3-way merge driver is used to merge the
586 contents in a way similar to 'merge' command of `RCS`
587 suite. This is suitable for ordinary text files.
591 Take the version from the current branch as the
592 tentative merge result, and declare that the merge has
593 conflicts. This is suitable for binary files that does
594 not have a well-defined merge semantics.
598 By default, this uses the same built-in 3-way merge
599 driver as is the case the `merge` attribute is set.
600 However, `merge.default` configuration variable can name
601 different merge driver to be used for paths to which the
602 `merge` attribute is unspecified.
606 3-way merge is performed using the specified custom
607 merge driver. The built-in 3-way merge driver can be
608 explicitly specified by asking for "text" driver; the
609 built-in "take the current branch" driver can be
610 requested with "binary".
613 Built-in merge drivers
614 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
616 There are a few built-in low-level merge drivers defined that
617 can be asked for via the `merge` attribute.
621 Usual 3-way file level merge for text files. Conflicted
622 regions are marked with conflict markers `<<<<<<<`,
623 `=======` and `>>>>>>>`. The version from your branch
624 appears before the `=======` marker, and the version
625 from the merged branch appears after the `=======`
630 Keep the version from your branch in the work tree, but
631 leave the path in the conflicted state for the user to
636 Run 3-way file level merge for text files, but take
637 lines from both versions, instead of leaving conflict
638 markers. This tends to leave the added lines in the
639 resulting file in random order and the user should
640 verify the result. Do not use this if you do not
641 understand the implications.
644 Defining a custom merge driver
645 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
647 The definition of a merge driver is done in the `.git/config`
648 file, not in the `gitattributes` file, so strictly speaking this
649 manual page is a wrong place to talk about it. However...
651 To define a custom merge driver `filfre`, add a section to your
652 `$GIT_DIR/config` file (or `$HOME/.gitconfig` file) like this:
654 ----------------------------------------------------------------
656 name = feel-free merge driver
657 driver = filfre %O %A %B
659 ----------------------------------------------------------------
661 The `merge.*.name` variable gives the driver a human-readable
664 The `merge.*.driver` variable's value is used to construct a
665 command to run to merge ancestor's version (`%O`), current
666 version (`%A`) and the other branches' version (`%B`). These
667 three tokens are replaced with the names of temporary files that
668 hold the contents of these versions when the command line is
669 built. Additionally, %L will be replaced with the conflict marker
672 The merge driver is expected to leave the result of the merge in
673 the file named with `%A` by overwriting it, and exit with zero
674 status if it managed to merge them cleanly, or non-zero if there
677 The `merge.*.recursive` variable specifies what other merge
678 driver to use when the merge driver is called for an internal
679 merge between common ancestors, when there are more than one.
680 When left unspecified, the driver itself is used for both
681 internal merge and the final merge.
684 `conflict-marker-size`
685 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
687 This attribute controls the length of conflict markers left in
688 the work tree file during a conflicted merge. Only setting to
689 the value to a positive integer has any meaningful effect.
691 For example, this line in `.gitattributes` can be used to tell the merge
692 machinery to leave much longer (instead of the usual 7-character-long)
693 conflict markers when merging the file `Documentation/git-merge.txt`
694 results in a conflict.
696 ------------------------
697 Documentation/git-merge.txt conflict-marker-size=32
698 ------------------------
701 Checking whitespace errors
702 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
707 The `core.whitespace` configuration variable allows you to define what
708 'diff' and 'apply' should consider whitespace errors for all paths in
709 the project (See linkgit:git-config[1]). This attribute gives you finer
714 Notice all types of potential whitespace errors known to git.
718 Do not notice anything as error.
722 Use the value of `core.whitespace` configuration variable to
723 decide what to notice as error.
727 Specify a comma separate list of common whitespace problems to
728 notice in the same format as `core.whitespace` configuration
738 Files and directories with the attribute `export-ignore` won't be added to
744 If the attribute `export-subst` is set for a file then git will expand
745 several placeholders when adding this file to an archive. The
746 expansion depends on the availability of a commit ID, i.e., if
747 linkgit:git-archive[1] has been given a tree instead of a commit or a
748 tag then no replacement will be done. The placeholders are the same
749 as those for the option `--pretty=format:` of linkgit:git-log[1],
750 except that they need to be wrapped like this: `$Format:PLACEHOLDERS$`
751 in the file. E.g. the string `$Format:%H$` will be replaced by the
761 Delta compression will not be attempted for blobs for paths with the
762 attribute `delta` set to false.
765 Viewing files in GUI tools
766 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
771 The value of this attribute specifies the character encoding that should
772 be used by GUI tools (e.g. linkgit:gitk[1] and linkgit:git-gui[1]) to
773 display the contents of the relevant file. Note that due to performance
774 considerations linkgit:gitk[1] does not use this attribute unless you
775 manually enable per-file encodings in its options.
777 If this attribute is not set or has an invalid value, the value of the
778 `gui.encoding` configuration variable is used instead
779 (See linkgit:git-config[1]).
782 USING ATTRIBUTE MACROS
783 ----------------------
785 You do not want any end-of-line conversions applied to, nor textual diffs
786 produced for, any binary file you track. You would need to specify e.g.
792 but that may become cumbersome, when you have many attributes. Using
793 attribute macros, you can specify groups of attributes set or unset at
794 the same time. The system knows a built-in attribute macro, `binary`:
800 which is equivalent to the above. Note that the attribute macros can only
801 be "Set" (see the above example that sets "binary" macro as if it were an
802 ordinary attribute --- setting it in turn unsets "text" and "diff").
805 DEFINING ATTRIBUTE MACROS
806 -------------------------
808 Custom attribute macros can be defined only in the `.gitattributes` file
809 at the toplevel (i.e. not in any subdirectory). The built-in attribute
810 macro "binary" is equivalent to:
813 [attr]binary -diff -text
820 If you have these three `gitattributes` file:
822 ----------------------------------------------------------------
823 (in $GIT_DIR/info/attributes)
830 (in t/.gitattributes)
834 ----------------------------------------------------------------
836 the attributes given to path `t/abc` are computed as follows:
838 1. By examining `t/.gitattributes` (which is in the same
839 directory as the path in question), git finds that the first
840 line matches. `merge` attribute is set. It also finds that
841 the second line matches, and attributes `foo` and `bar`
844 2. Then it examines `.gitattributes` (which is in the parent
845 directory), and finds that the first line matches, but
846 `t/.gitattributes` file already decided how `merge`, `foo`
847 and `bar` attributes should be given to this path, so it
848 leaves `foo` and `bar` unset. Attribute `baz` is set.
850 3. Finally it examines `$GIT_DIR/info/attributes`. This file
851 is used to override the in-tree settings. The first line is
852 a match, and `foo` is set, `bar` is reverted to unspecified
853 state, and `baz` is unset.
855 As the result, the attributes assignment to `t/abc` becomes:
857 ----------------------------------------------------------------
861 merge set to string value "filfre"
863 ----------------------------------------------------------------
869 Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite