Re: mingw, windows, crlf/lf, and git

[Sam Ravnborg <sam@ravnborg.org>]

On Wed, Feb 14, 2007 at 08:28:24AM -0800, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> 
> 
> On Wed, 14 Feb 2007, Sam Ravnborg wrote:
> >
> > > (Which means that I suspect I made the default for "auto_crlf" be wrong in 
> > > my patch: I probably should not default to checking out with CRLF, but 
> > > checking out with just LF, and only do the CRLF->LF conversion on input).
> >
> > Expect that it seems a few br0ken programs yet does not support LF as
> > end-of-line marker - so .gitattriutes make take special care here.
> 
> Yes, but I also think that even without .gitattributes, you just want to 
> have a default for what "text" actually means, and it's entirely possible 
> that the default should be: "check out with just LF, and on check-in turn 
> CRLF into LF".
The definition of what is "text" and what action to take upon check-in /
check-out of text is two sepearate things.

I could see it as beneficial as a per-project or even as an overall
git-policy to say "checkin-as-LF" - "checkout-as-LF" to overcome
interoperability issues when more tools gets UNIX* based.

> 
> But exactly because _some_ programs might want to always see CRLF on input 
> too, it should be overridable. 
Which is where I see .gitattributes come into play.
-> A rule that says files with extension .prj and of type "text" shall not see
any conversion.

In this way almost all "text" over time get a proper format and the remaining
brain-dead tools that continue to save in CRLF format will not destroy the sane
LF format.

If anything gets defualt I would vote for LF. But overrideable.

My editor-of-choice does eol auto-sense. If I recall correct it scans the
first 200 lines and counts number of CR,LF,CRLF and based on this judge the
actual eol character used. But not all editors are that sensible :-(

	Sam