Re: .git/info/attributes not cloned

[Jeff King <peff@peff.net>]

On Thu, Mar 27, 2008 at 03:23:27PM +1100, Toby Corkindale wrote:

> Ah, OK.
> I was hoping not to use .gitattributes, as then the attributes are  
> ignored when doing something like:
> git archive --remote=example.com:/path/to/repo release/v2.1 | tar xf -

I vaguely recall some discussion of this in the past, so maybe it isn't
a good idea. But I would think changing git-archive to respect
.gitattributes might be worth doing (presumably the version of
.gitattributes from the tree that is being exported).

> That gives a clue that the /info/ files are repo-specific.
> However in gitignore(5) and gitattributes(5), there is no explanation of  
> this - it simply mentions that the info version is a higher priority than 
> the .git{ignore,attributes} version.
>
> I suggest that the individual docs/man-pages should mention that too.
> I'll submit a patch in a separate email, as long as I'm not still  
> misunderstanding the mechanism.

I think you understand what is going on. A clarification to both pages
would be helpful, I think, just saying "here is why you might use one
over the other."

> Is there a recommended way to make attributes apply to commands run on a  
> remote repository, or is that a different bug?

I'm not sure what you mean here. Very few commands talk to remote
repositories. I had assumed in your git-archive example that you wanted
.gitattributes on the remote repo to affect the tarfile generated by
that repo. But now it sounds like you want to edit a local file to
impact the archive generated remotely. I don't think there is a way to
do that.

-Peff