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| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/gitattributes.txt | 33 |
1 files changed, 33 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/gitattributes.txt b/Documentation/gitattributes.txt index d892e642ed..f3f880e270 100644 --- a/Documentation/gitattributes.txt +++ b/Documentation/gitattributes.txt @@ -415,6 +415,39 @@ should generate it separately and send it as a comment _in addition to_ the usual binary diff that you might send. +Marking files as binary +^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ + +Git usually guesses correctly whether a blob contains text or binary +data by examining the beginning of the contents. However, sometimes you +may want to override its decision, either because a blob contains binary +data later in the file, or because the content, while technically +composed of text characters, is opaque to a human reader. For example, +many postscript files contain only ascii characters, but produce noisy +and meaningless diffs. + +The simplest way to mark a file as binary is to unset the diff +attribute in the `.gitattributes` file: + +------------------------ +*.ps -diff +------------------------ + +This will cause git to generate `Binary files differ` (or a binary +patch, if binary patches are enabled) instead of a regular diff. + +However, one may also want to specify other diff driver attributes. For +example, you might want to use `textconv` to convert postscript files to +an ascii representation for human viewing, but otherwise treat them as +binary files. You cannot specify both `-diff` and `diff=ps` attributes. +The solution is to use the `diff.*.binary` config option: + +------------------------ +[diff "ps"] + textconv = ps2ascii + binary = true +------------------------ + Performing a three-way merge ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ |