# what file extensions must be explicitly configured with respect to eol-type in gitattributes? 2 messages from 2010-09-20 to 2010-09-20. Participants: Robert Buck, Erik Faye-Lund. Thread: https://gitlist.dev/t/25167 ## Robert Buck, 2010-09-20 16:19 Subject: what file extensions must be explicitly configured with respect to eol-type in gitattributes? Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/AANLkTikK2oL3sUYHdqoQ7C47nd6Pi53N17GSfh8nx6Q-%40mail.gmail.com ``` Hello, One project we have in house has approximately 160 different file extensions used for the files checked in. In our repository there are files that MUST be CRLF (.bat, .cmd, .vcproj, etc), files that MUST be LF (.xml, .xsl, .sh, etc), and files that MUST be binary. All others are just text and so long as they appear in native form I'd be happy. It would seem a default rule to handle text files would make sense: * text=auto But I have not found material explaining how git identifies binary files, so one concern would be that it could mangle binary file types in some cases. Do I have to explicitly mention all 160 file types in the gitattributes file? How does git internally determine whether a file is text vs binary? Does it use the 'file' command in Unix? And where I am going with this specifically is a question: what rules MUST be specifically stated in gitattributes and what rules are there implicitly? Thank you, Bob ``` ## Erik Faye-Lund, 2010-09-20 16:51 Subject: Re: what file extensions must be explicitly configured with respect to eol-type in gitattributes? Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/AANLkTikJO631YDE_UpNrC-4kjc_LF5_Gb8Xv7pCJfOf%3D%40mail.gmail.com In-Reply-To: ``` On Mon, Sep 20, 2010 at 6:19 PM, Robert Buck wrote: > Hello, > > One project we have in house has approximately 160 different file > extensions used for the files checked in. In our repository there are > files that MUST be CRLF (.bat, .cmd, .vcproj, etc), files that MUST be > LF (.xml, .xsl, .sh, etc), and files that MUST be binary. All others > are just text and so long as they appear in native form I'd be happy. > > It would seem a default rule to handle text files would make sense: > > * text=auto > > But I have not found material explaining how git identifies binary > files, so one concern would be that it could mangle binary file types > in some cases. > > Do I have to explicitly mention all 160 file types in the gitattributes file? If you want to be 100% sure, yes. > How does git internally determine whether a file is text vs binary? > Does it use the 'file' command in Unix? No. Git applies the following heuristics to the file content: - Does the file contain any NUL-characters? If so, it's binary. - Is the ratio of printable characters vs non-printable characters (when interpreted as ascii) below 128? If so, it's binary. - Otherwise, it's text. You can find the exact function here (beware of wrapping): http://git.kernel.org/?p=git/git.git;a=blob;f=convert.c;h=01de9a84c21b31a0120065a32a386f27321cdf7b;hb=HEAD#l77 In general, this works pretty well. In addition, there's the core.safecrlf configuration variable, which can be used to protect you against normalizing the file in such a way that the exact original file can't be recovered. > And where I am going with this specifically is a question: what rules > MUST be specifically stated in gitattributes and what rules are there > implicitly? Given the above information, you should be able to figure this one out for yourself. The answer depends on how pedantic you are ;) ```