Can git ignore parts of files

I have kind of an odd problem that is causing me grief in git.  I figure
someone has a good solution here.  (Or not, they will soon.)

I have a couple of kernel .config files that are checked into git.  They
are used to test kernel configurations for the nightly builds where I
work.

We have a bunch of kernel developers working on drivers.  When they add
a new driver, they add in the options in the test file to make it
compile in the test builds.

The problem is that the kernel config file has a timestamp at the top of
the file that is generated by "make oldconfig" or "make config".  Other
than removing the timestamp each time manually, is there a way to get
git to ignore the timestamp on a merge?

What happens is that the authors submit the changes on a branch in most
cases.  Sometimes they have a version of that file that is quite out of
date.  When I go to merge, that one file gives me grief 95% of the time.

Is there an easy way around this?  Am I approaching the problem wrong?
Is there a better way to do this?

Le Friday 14 November 2008 20:17:32 Alan, vous avez écrit :

I have kind of an odd problem that is causing me grief in git.  I figure
someone has a good solution here.  (Or not, they will soon.)

I have a couple of kernel .config files that are checked into git.  They
are used to test kernel configurations for the nightly builds where I
work.

We have a bunch of kernel developers working on drivers.  When they add
a new driver, they add in the options in the test file to make it
compile in the test builds.

The problem is that the kernel config file has a timestamp at the top of
the file that is generated by "make oldconfig" or "make config".  Other
than removing the timestamp each time manually, is there a way to get
git to ignore the timestamp on a merge?

What happens is that the authors submit the changes on a branch in most
cases.  Sometimes they have a version of that file that is quite out of
date.  When I go to merge, that one file gives me grief 95% of the time.

Is there an easy way around this?  Am I approaching the problem wrong?
Is there a better way to do this?

Do they ever touch to the kernel core? You say that they are developing 
drivers, they basically use core kernel interfaces but not modify them right?

For quite a few years now, the kernel build system has allowed one to build 
drivers out of the kernel tree (but _using_ the kernel tree) fairly easily. 
Why not go this route? You won't have any conflict problems anymore, _and_ 
you can maintain (and update) your kernel tree regularly.

-- 
fge

On Fri, 2008-11-14 at 20:33 +0100, Francis Galiegue wrote:

Le Friday 14 November 2008 20:17:32 Alan, vous avez écrit :

quoted

I have kind of an odd problem that is causing me grief in git.  I figure
someone has a good solution here.  (Or not, they will soon.)

I have a couple of kernel .config files that are checked into git.  They
are used to test kernel configurations for the nightly builds where I
work.

We have a bunch of kernel developers working on drivers.  When they add
a new driver, they add in the options in the test file to make it
compile in the test builds.

The problem is that the kernel config file has a timestamp at the top of
the file that is generated by "make oldconfig" or "make config".  Other
than removing the timestamp each time manually, is there a way to get
git to ignore the timestamp on a merge?

What happens is that the authors submit the changes on a branch in most
cases.  Sometimes they have a version of that file that is quite out of
date.  When I go to merge, that one file gives me grief 95% of the time.

Is there an easy way around this?  Am I approaching the problem wrong?
Is there a better way to do this?

Do they ever touch to the kernel core? You say that they are developing 
drivers, they basically use core kernel interfaces but not modify them right?

For quite a few years now, the kernel build system has allowed one to build 
drivers out of the kernel tree (but _using_ the kernel tree) fairly easily. 
Why not go this route? You won't have any conflict problems anymore, _and_ 
you can maintain (and update) your kernel tree regularly.

Because these will go into core at some later date.  (I work for Intel.)

On Fri, Nov 14, 2008 at 12:17 PM, Alan [off-list ref] wrote:

I have kind of an odd problem that is causing me grief in git.  I figure
someone has a good solution here.  (Or not, they will soon.)

I have a couple of kernel .config files that are checked into git.  They
are used to test kernel configurations for the nightly builds where I
work.

We have a bunch of kernel developers working on drivers.  When they add
a new driver, they add in the options in the test file to make it
compile in the test builds.

The problem is that the kernel config file has a timestamp at the top of
the file that is generated by "make oldconfig" or "make config".  Other
than removing the timestamp each time manually, is there a way to get
git to ignore the timestamp on a merge?

What happens is that the authors submit the changes on a branch in most
cases.  Sometimes they have a version of that file that is quite out of
date.  When I go to merge, that one file gives me grief 95% of the time.

Is there an easy way around this?  Am I approaching the problem wrong?
Is there a better way to do this?

Someone wrote a special merge algorithm to handle similar conflicts in
tracked ChangeLog files (see
http://www.mail-archive.com/bug-gnulib@gnu.org/msg09183.html).
Perhaps you could write a similar merge algorithm and use it?

Hope that helps,
Elijah

On Fri, 14 Nov 2008, Alan wrote:

I have kind of an odd problem that is causing me grief in git.  I figure
someone has a good solution here.  (Or not, they will soon.)

I have a couple of kernel .config files that are checked into git.  They
are used to test kernel configurations for the nightly builds where I
work.

We have a bunch of kernel developers working on drivers.  When they add
a new driver, they add in the options in the test file to make it
compile in the test builds.

The problem is that the kernel config file has a timestamp at the top of
the file that is generated by "make oldconfig" or "make config".  Other
than removing the timestamp each time manually, is there a way to get
git to ignore the timestamp on a merge?

Try the "clean"/"smudge" filter feature documented in gitattributes(5). 
You should be able to use that to remove the timestamp automatically.

	-Daniel
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