Re: Is there a way to have a local version of a header file?

From: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab@gmail.com>
Date: Mar 18, 2017, 14:48 UTC
Message-ID: <CACBZZX5FMdjuxxNru+XfTQdSXEQ_b0OP2rngGZLf1sSHR_D8Ng@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <nycvar.QRO.7.75.62.1703180724490.3797@qynat-yncgbc>

On Sat, Mar 18, 2017 at 3:29 PM, David Lang <david@lang.hm> wrote:

Show 15 quoted lines

> for an embedded project built inside the Arduino IDE, (alternate firmware
> for a home automation project) there is a need to set a number of parameters
> that we really don't want in the main repo (wifi network IDs/passwords)
>
> right now, we have these things set as #defines in a header file.
>
> We need to distribute a base version of this file for new people to get
> started.
>
> Is there any way to have git define a file in such a way that if it doesn't
> exist in the worktree it gets populated, but if it does exist it doesn't get
> overwritten? (as I type this, I'm thinking a trigger may work, but we need
> it to work on Linux, Windows and OSX)
>
> Any thoughts on a sane way to handle this situation?

There's no sane way to do what you're describing without renaming the file.

But the sanest way to do this is to have a config.h.example

Then you have "/config.h" in the .gitignore file.

And you tell the users to copy the *.example file to *.h, and your program then includes the *.h file.

If you wanted to provide defaults you could just #include the config.h.example first, so #defines in the *.h file would clobber those in the *.example.