SYNOPSIS
--------
-$GIT_DIR/info/attributes, gitattributes
+$GIT_DIR/info/attributes, .gitattributes
DESCRIPTION
Unset::
- Unsetting the `crlf` attribute on a path is meant to
- mark the path as a "binary" file. The path never goes
- through line endings conversion upon checkin/checkout.
+ Unsetting the `crlf` attribute on a path tells git not to
+ attempt any end-of-line conversion upon checkin or checkout.
Unspecified::
Defining a custom hunk-header
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
-Each group of changes (called "hunk") in the textual diff output
+Each group of changes (called a "hunk") in the textual diff output
is prefixed with a line of the form:
@@ -k,l +n,m @@ TEXT
-The text is called 'hunk header', and by default a line that
-begins with an alphabet, an underscore or a dollar sign is used,
-which matches what GNU `diff -p` output uses. This default
-selection however is not suited for some contents, and you can
-use customized pattern to make a selection.
+This is called a 'hunk header'. The "TEXT" portion is by default a line
+that begins with an alphabet, an underscore or a dollar sign; this
+matches what GNU 'diff -p' output uses. This default selection however
+is not suited for some contents, and you can use a customized pattern
+to make a selection.
-First in .gitattributes, you would assign the `diff` attribute
+First, in .gitattributes, you would assign the `diff` attribute
for paths.
------------------------
*.tex diff=tex
------------------------
-Then, you would define "diff.tex.funcname" configuration to
+Then, you would define a "diff.tex.xfuncname" configuration to
specify a regular expression that matches a line that you would
-want to appear as the hunk header, like this:
+want to appear as the hunk header "TEXT", like this:
------------------------
[diff "tex"]
- funcname = "^\\(\\\\\\(sub\\)*section{.*\\)$"
+ xfuncname = "^(\\\\(sub)*section\\{.*)$"
------------------------
Note. A single level of backslashes are eaten by the
There are a few built-in patterns to make this easier, and `tex`
is one of them, so you do not have to write the above in your
configuration file (you still need to enable this with the
-attribute mechanism, via `.gitattributes`). Another built-in
-pattern is defined for `java` that defines a pattern suitable
-for program text in Java language.
+attribute mechanism, via `.gitattributes`). The following built in
+patterns are available:
+
+- `bibtex` suitable for files with BibTeX coded references.
+
+- `html` suitable for HTML/XHTML documents.
+
+- `java` suitable for source code in the Java language.
+
+- `objc` suitable for source code in the Objective-C language.
+
+- `pascal` suitable for source code in the Pascal/Delphi language.
+
+- `php` suitable for source code in the PHP language.
+
+- `python` suitable for source code in the Python language.
+
+- `ruby` suitable for source code in the Ruby language.
+
+- `tex` suitable for source code for LaTeX documents.
Performing a three-way merge
Set::
Built-in 3-way merge driver is used to merge the
- contents in a way similar to `merge` command of `RCS`
+ contents in a way similar to 'merge' command of `RCS`
suite. This is suitable for ordinary text files.
Unset::
^^^^^^^^^^^^
The `core.whitespace` configuration variable allows you to define what
-`diff` and `apply` should consider whitespace errors for all paths in
+'diff' and 'apply' should consider whitespace errors for all paths in
the project (See linkgit:git-config[1]). This attribute gives you finer
control per path.
variable.
+Creating an archive
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+`export-ignore`
+^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
+
+Files and directories with the attribute `export-ignore` won't be added to
+archive files.
+
+`export-subst`
+^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
+
+If the attribute `export-subst` is set for a file then git will expand
+several placeholders when adding this file to an archive. The
+expansion depends on the availability of a commit ID, i.e., if
+linkgit:git-archive[1] has been given a tree instead of a commit or a
+tag then no replacement will be done. The placeholders are the same
+as those for the option `--pretty=format:` of linkgit:git-log[1],
+except that they need to be wrapped like this: `$Format:PLACEHOLDERS$`
+in the file. E.g. the string `$Format:%H$` will be replaced by the
+commit hash.
+
+
+USING ATTRIBUTE MACROS
+----------------------
+
+You do not want any end-of-line conversions applied to, nor textual diffs
+produced for, any binary file you track. You would need to specify e.g.
+
+------------
+*.jpg -crlf -diff
+------------
+
+but that may become cumbersome, when you have many attributes. Using
+attribute macros, you can specify groups of attributes set or unset at
+the same time. The system knows a built-in attribute macro, `binary`:
+
+------------
+*.jpg binary
+------------
+
+which is equivalent to the above. Note that the attribute macros can only
+be "Set" (see the above example that sets "binary" macro as if it were an
+ordinary attribute --- setting it in turn unsets "crlf" and "diff").
+
+
+DEFINING ATTRIBUTE MACROS
+-------------------------
+
+Custom attribute macros can be defined only in the `.gitattributes` file
+at the toplevel (i.e. not in any subdirectory). The built-in attribute
+macro "binary" is equivalent to:
+
+------------
+[attr]binary -diff -crlf
+------------
+
+
EXAMPLE
-------
----------------------------------------------------------------
-Creating an archive
-~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-
-`export-ignore`
-^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
-
-Files and directories with the attribute `export-ignore` won't be added to
-archive files.
-
-`export-subst`
-^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
-
-If the attribute `export-subst` is set for a file then git will expand
-several placeholders when adding this file to an archive. The
-expansion depends on the availability of a commit ID, i.e., if
-'git-archive' has been given a tree instead of a commit or a
-tag then no replacement will be done. The placeholders are the same
-as those for the option `--pretty=format:` of linkgit:git-log[1],
-except that they need to be wrapped like this: `$Format:PLACEHOLDERS$`
-in the file. E.g. the string `$Format:%H$` will be replaced by the
-commit hash.
-
GIT
---