end-of-line diff checkout direction dependence problem

[Thomas Vieten <tvie@ivision.de>]

We face a very inconvenient problem with end-of-line diffs which are not 
"real".
We know the end-of-line problem very well as we thought.
But now we found a new phenomenon and nobody mentioning it.

Consider the following repository structure:

           -----------|----|------------->branch1
         /
master
         \
----------|-------|---------|--------------->branch2

The branches are based on master/head.
We just consider one branch here, e.g. branch1 .

Working with the head of branch1 gives no problems. No end-of-line diffs.
Also going back in the direction of master - no problems.
Only in the case if we do a checkout from branch1 to master, then
all of a sudden end-of-line diffs appear.
The files might be changed, but the end-of-line attributes in 
gitattributes are not changed in the branch.

It seems to be the case that since the last change to the files which 
pop up with eol differences, gittattributes where changed and touch 
their extensions.

With the operation

git ls-files -z | xargs -0 rm -f  # delete all the files of this version 
- here master/head
git reset --hard                  # force checkout of master/head and 
reset index

The problem disappears! No eol problems anymore. Something like a brute 
force checkout.

Also checking out versions in the direction of branch1 give never 
end-of-line diffs.

What has changed somewhen are the gitattributes.

We estimate that this becomes a problem when applying the diffs from 
branch1 in the direction of
the master. Finally then the diffs result in a different state from the 
master.

But when the master is checked out freshly, this difference does not appear.

Very, very annoying.

We check now every time when these end-of-line diffs appear, if they are 
really end of line diffs

git diff --ignore-space-at-eol

and then try the procedure above.

But to have a dependence from the direction of the checkout is somewhat 
irritating.

If this is not a bug - then how to avoid it ?

bye for now

Thomas

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