From: Matthias Kestenholz Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2008 12:22:34 GMT Subject: Re: git and mtime Message-ID: In-Reply-To: <20081119113752.GA13611@ravenclaw.codelibre.net> Hi, On 19.11.2008, at 12:37, Roger Leigh wrote: > Hi folks, > > I'm using git to store some generated files, as well as their sources. > (This is in the context of Debian package development, where entire > upstream release tarballs are injected into an upstream branch, with > Debian releases merging the upstream branch, and adding the Debian > packaging files.) > > The upstream release tarballs contains files such as > - yacc/lex code, and the corresponding generated sources > - Docbook/XML code, and corresponding HTML/PDF documentation > > These are provided by upstream so that end users don't need these > tools > installed (particularly docbook, since the toolchain is so flaky on > different systems). However, the fact that git isn't storing the > mtime of the files confuses make, so it then tries to regenerate these > (already up-to-date) files, and fails in the process since the tools > aren't available. > > Would it be possible for git to store the mtime of files in the tree? > This subject comes up from time to time, but the answer always stays the same: No. The trees are purely defined by their content, and that's by design. If you do not want to regenerate files that are already up-to-date, you need multiple checkouts of the same repository. Thanks, Matthias