Re: getting git to ignore modifications to specific files

On 02/09/10 03:20, Michael J Gruber wrote:

Chris Packham venit, vidit, dixit 01.09.2010 20:57:

quoted

Hi,

We have a git repository that as some GNU build system (a.k.a.
autotools) files, my current problem is with the INSTALL file but I
suspect there may be some others. These can get modified if you are
running a different version of autotools from when the files were created.

I've had various arguments about which autotools files should or
shouldn't be included in our repositories. My general rule of thumb is
that if it is automatically generated then it shouldn't go into the
repository.

There are a couple of repositories that are local clones of 3rd party
repositories which have included the pesky auto-generated files so whle
I can remove the offending files from repositories we control I need
another solution for the 3rd part ones.

I did a bit of googling and found
  git update-index --assume-unchanged

Which works locally to stop git status from complaining. Is there anyway
for me to make a change to our clone (a .gitattribues entry?) so that
everyone can get this by default?

For tracking my git configuration including .gitk, I used

[filter "dotgitk"]
        clean = fgrep -v geometry

together with an appropriate attribute for gitk.

I don't know how your autogenerated files differ, but maybe you can set
up a filter (or custom diff driver) which makes git think the files are
equal though they are not, just like in my case (ignoring window
geometry changes for gitk).

Michael

In my case the file differs quite a lot (GNU copyright statement has
been updated) so a simple clean filter like that won't work.

One question is if I could come up with a filter, would it even work to
stop git status from saying its modified?

I tried the custom diff

  [diff "ignoretracked"]
          command = true

but that didn't stop git status from saying it was modified. It did
however make "git diff" show no differences as expected.

The best advice seems to be get the file removed. I've sent a patch
upstream so hopefully that will fix the problem going forward.