Feature idea: Ignore content

Feature idea: Ignore content

[Ramkumar Ramachandra]

Hi,

Often, I find that I need to track a file which contains a small
portion I don't want to track (read: line with a password). Instead of
moving that out to a separate file and ignoring that file, is it a
good idea to add a feature to Git to allow ignoring content instead of
whole files? Since Git by nature tracks content, this shouldn't be too
hard to implement, right?

Re: Feature idea: Ignore content

[Peter Krefting]

Ramkumar Ramachandra:

> Instead of moving that out to a separate file and ignoring that file, is 
> it a good idea to add a feature to Git to allow ignoring content instead 
> of whole files?

You should be able to do that by setting up a filter. Please see 
gitattributes(5) for more information (search for "filter").

-- 
\\// Peter - http://www.softwolves.pp.se/

Re: Feature idea: Ignore content

[Jacob Helwig]

On Tue, Jan 19, 2010 at 05:29, Ramkumar Ramachandra <artagnon@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Often, I find that I need to track a file which contains a small
> portion I don't want to track (read: line with a password). Instead of
> moving that out to a separate file and ignoring that file, is it a
> good idea to add a feature to Git to allow ignoring content instead of
> whole files? Since Git by nature tracks content, this shouldn't be too
> hard to implement, right?
>

Generally, the way I've seen this handled is by tracking an example
file, and ignoring the "real" file with the password.

Something like:
  config/database.example.yml <-- Tracked file, with a dummy password
& connection info.
  config/database.yml    <-- Ignored file, actually used by application.

Re: Feature idea: Ignore content

[Dirk Süsserott]

Am 19.01.2010 15:05 schrieb Peter Krefting:
> Ramkumar Ramachandra:
> 
>> Instead of moving that out to a separate file and ignoring that file, 
>> is it a good idea to add a feature to Git to allow ignoring content 
>> instead of whole files?
> 
> You should be able to do that by setting up a filter. Please see 
> gitattributes(5) for more information (search for "filter").
> 

Hi Ramkumar,

please have a look at this thread:
http://marc.info/?t=125882165900001&r=1&w=2
especially Björn's suggestion to use a 'clean filter'. It worked fine
for me with a similar problem: I wanted Git to ignore a certain pattern
in my files.

HTH,
Dirk

Re: Feature idea: Ignore content

[Ramkumar Ramachandra]

> http://marc.info/?t=125882165900001&r=1&w=2

Fantastic- I had no idea that such a feature even existed. I got it to
work nicely. Thanks!