# Automatically exclude hunks from the commit

4 messages from 2010-07-20 to 2010-07-20. Participants: Joshua Jensen, Joshua Juran, Wincent Colaiuta, Michael J Gruber.
Thread: https://gitlist.dev/t/24440

## Joshua Jensen, 2010-07-20 03:02

Subject: Automatically exclude hunks from the commit
Message-ID: <4C4511C8.8090405@workspacewhiz.com>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/4C4511C8.8090405%40workspacewhiz.com

```
  I have some files I update frequently where I have some normally 
commented out debug code purposely uncommented during development.  
Git's hunk-level staging saves the day.  I can stage everything but the 
debug code without issue.

This got me to thinking.  Is there a better way?  Is there a facility in 
Git where I could mark a hunk as 'permanently frozen unstaged'?  
Anything marked as such would never be staged for commit.  I could rest 
assured I would never accidentally commit my debug code, be it extra 
printfs or a development server or a password or so on.

Thanks for the help.

Josh

```

## Joshua Juran, 2010-07-20 05:17

Subject: Re: Automatically exclude hunks from the commit
Message-ID: <C18AA39F-1ADD-46A8-8A10-25A6B6AF26CB@gmail.com>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/C18AA39F-1ADD-46A8-8A10-25A6B6AF26CB%40gmail.com
In-Reply-To: <4C4511C8.8090405@workspacewhiz.com>

```
On Jul 19, 2010, at 8:02 PM, Joshua Jensen wrote:

> I have some files I update frequently where I have some normally  
> commented out debug code purposely uncommented during development.   
> Git's hunk-level staging saves the day.  I can stage everything but  
> the debug code without issue.
>
> This got me to thinking.  Is there a better way?  Is there a  
> facility in Git where I could mark a hunk as 'permanently frozen  
> unstaged'?  Anything marked as such would never be staged for  
> commit.  I could rest assured I would never accidentally commit my  
> debug code, be it extra printfs or a development server or a  
> password or so on.

How about keeping your debug changes in a separate branch?  I work on  
a branch called 'hack', to which I'll commit pretty much anything.   
When a patch is ready, I cherry-pick it from master and rebase hack  
onto master.[1]

Passwords which are so sensitive that they can't ever be checked in  
should be stored in ignored files or outside the repo entirely.

Josh

[1] It's actually more complicated than that.  I create 'tip' as a  
merger of master and my formal topic branches, and hack stays rebased  
on tip.

```

## Wincent Colaiuta, 2010-07-20 05:36

Subject: Re: Automatically exclude hunks from the commit
Message-ID: <51F8E66E-9CDD-466A-8411-38CA8431D8AC@wincent.com>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/51F8E66E-9CDD-466A-8411-38CA8431D8AC%40wincent.com
In-Reply-To: <4C4511C8.8090405@workspacewhiz.com>

```
El 20/07/2010, a las 05:02, Joshua Jensen escribió:

> I have some files I update frequently where I have some normally commented out debug code purposely uncommented during development.  Git's hunk-level staging saves the day.  I can stage everything but the debug code without issue.
> 
> This got me to thinking.  Is there a better way?  Is there a facility in Git where I could mark a hunk as 'permanently frozen unstaged'?  Anything marked as such would never be staged for commit.  I could rest assured I would never accidentally commit my debug code, be it extra printfs or a development server or a password or so on.

A custom pre-commit hook might be of some use here. You could create one which rejects changes which are obviously debug code.

Cheers,
Wincent

```

## Michael J Gruber, 2010-07-20 09:26

Subject: Re: Automatically exclude hunks from the commit
Message-ID: <4C456BBC.8010203@drmicha.warpmail.net>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/4C456BBC.8010203%40drmicha.warpmail.net
In-Reply-To: <4C4511C8.8090405@workspacewhiz.com>

```
Joshua Jensen venit, vidit, dixit 20.07.2010 05:02:
>   I have some files I update frequently where I have some normally 
> commented out debug code purposely uncommented during development.  
> Git's hunk-level staging saves the day.  I can stage everything but the 
> debug code without issue.
> 
> This got me to thinking.  Is there a better way?  Is there a facility in 
> Git where I could mark a hunk as 'permanently frozen unstaged'?  
> Anything marked as such would never be staged for commit.  I could rest 
> assured I would never accidentally commit my debug code, be it extra 
> printfs or a development server or a password or so on.
> 
> Thanks for the help.
> 
> Josh

If you don't want to deal with the branch approach suggested by the
other Joshua you could (ab)use the clean&smudge filters (see "filter" in
gitattributes(5)):

Define a clean filter such as "fgrep -v GITIGNORE" and mark every source
line which you want to ignore with a comment:

printf("Happy we got this far but I have no clue why"); // GITIGNORE

You can do more clever things with awk or sed, of course. "GITIGNORE" is
just some hopefully unused string.

Note that a "checkout" would overwrite your debug lines!

Cheers,
Michael

```