Patterns in .gitattributes do not work if they end with a slash

[doxygen-spammer]

The patterns in .gitattributes are allowed to end with a slash, in which case they match only directories, not files.

Apparently, this is not supported correctly by git-archive-all. Running this in a shell:

mkdir test
cd test
git init
mkdir include dont-include-1 dont-include-2
touch include/a.txt dont-include-1/b.txt dont-include-2/c.txt
echo dont-include-1/ export-ignore >>.gitattributes
echo dont-include-2 export-ignore >>.gitattributes
git add -A
git commit -m "Test"
git-archive-all ../test.zip
zipinfo ../test.zip

results in:

Archive:  ../test.zip
Zip file size: 415 bytes, number of entries: 3
-rw-rw-r--  2.0 unx       59 b- defN 21-Sep-22 17:12 test/.gitattributes
-rw-rw-r--  2.0 unx        0 b- defN 21-Sep-22 17:12 test/dont-include-1/b.txt
-rw-rw-r--  2.0 unx        0 b- defN 21-Sep-22 17:12 test/include/a.txt
3 files, 59 bytes uncompressed, 41 bytes compressed:  30.5%

(on Ubuntu 20.04.)

.gitattributes is now:

dont-include-1/ export-ignore
dont-include-2 export-ignore

Compare against git:archive:

git archive --output ../test2.zip HEAD
zipinfo ../test2.zip

results in:

Archive:  ../test2.zip
Zip file size: 451 bytes, number of entries: 3
-rw----     0.0 fat       59 tx defN 21-Sep-22 17:12 .gitattributes
drwx---     0.0 fat        0 bx stor 21-Sep-22 17:12 include/
-rw----     0.0 fat        0 tx stor 21-Sep-22 17:12 include/a.txt
3 files, 59 bytes uncompressed, 37 bytes compressed:  37.3%

[Kentzo]

From the documentation on gitattributes:

patterns that match a directory do not recursively match paths inside that directory (so using the trailing-slash path/ syntax is pointless in an attributes file; use path/** instead)

In other words the pattern needs to be changed from dont-include-1/ to dont-include-1/**. My understanding is confirmed by the behavior of git check-attr (which the script relies on to determine whether a file needs to be excluded).

With pattern specified as dont-include-1/:

> git check-attr export-ignore -- dont-include-1 dont-include-1/b.txt dont-include-2 dont-include-2/c.txt include include/a.txt 
dont-include-1: export-ignore: unspecified
dont-include-1/b.txt: export-ignore: unspecified
dont-include-2: export-ignore: set
dont-include-2/c.txt: export-ignore: unspecified
include: export-ignore: unspecified
include/a.txt: export-ignore: unspecified

With pattern specified as dont-include-1/**:

> git check-attr export-ignore -- dont-include-1 dont-include-1/b.txt dont-include-2 dont-include-2/c.txt include include/a.txt
dont-include-1: export-ignore: unspecified
dont-include-1/b.txt: export-ignore: set
dont-include-2: export-ignore: set
dont-include-2/c.txt: export-ignore: unspecified
include: export-ignore: unspecified
include/a.txt: export-ignore: unspecified

---

Perhaps you should report this discrepancy as a bug to the maintainers of git:

• Why does archive respect dir-name/ while check-attr doesn't?

Tested using

> git --version
git version 2.31.1

[doxygen-spammer]

Good point.

I interpret the documentation that git archive can exclude directories, while git check-attr assumes that only files are relevant. The documentation for gitattributes says that matching directories is pointless, but also mentions that directories are relevant for export-ignore (but not for export-subst). Therefore I think that git check-attr should also assume directories to be relevant.

The documentation is at least misleading IMHO, so I am going to report it to git.

[Kentzo]

Please post a link to the report here for reference.

[doxygen-spammer]

Sure https://lore.kernel.org/git/22364178.6Emhk5qWAg@doro/T/#u

[qmonnet]

Hello, did this report lead to a fix? I'm seeing the same in recent versions of the documentation. For what it's worth, I pinned down the commit adding support for excluding files with the dir/ export-ignore syntax in git archive: git/git@5ff247ac0cc9b2d09c8c24bd0c8df12eed94aebc.

It would be nice to have git-archive-all and git archive consistent on that, although looking at the code I see the script checks attributes for each individual file and does not walk through directories, so it's maybe not a trivial change?

[doxygen-spammer]

AFAIK not. I mailed the git mailing list, but without any response.

The problem appears to be that git-archive behaves different than documented, and git-archive-all does it “correct” instead.

[Kentzo]

I doubt they will ever fix this dues to backward compatibility. With enough discrepancies I could add "as git-archive" mode, but there are not complaints for that while, IIRC, you could just change the pattern to work with both.

@qmonnet Maybe bump that thread on kernel.org, see if there is someone to help this time around?

[qmonnet]

Thank you both for your answers! I agree that the change of pattern is trivial and can fix the issue; it's not something big, just that the difference in behaviour (or inconsistencies in Git's docs) can lead to surprise/confusion.

It would be nice to document this difference somewhere in git-archive-all, maybe?

I'll try to bump the thread on the ML, good idea, if I can find the time (won't be this week). [EDIT - The repo I'm interested in changed the pattern in its .gitattributes, I won't be pushing on the ML thread this time.]

[brlin-tw]

I have also encountered these behavior differences, though I would suggest mimicking the git archive command behavior entirely as IMO users are more expect the behavior to be the same with this command, not git check-attr.

In my use case(Git 2.34.1) for the pattern /continuous-integration/:

$ tree continuous-integration/
continuous-integration/
├── create-gitlab-release.sh
...stripped...
$ git-archive-all --dry-run test.tar | grep continuous-integration
/continuous-integration/create-gitlab-release.sh => test/continuous-integration/create-gitlab-release.sh
...stripped...
$ git archive HEAD | tar t | grep continuous-integration
(nothing)
$ git check-attr export-ignore -- continuous-integration
continuous-integration: export-ignore: set
$ git check-attr export-ignore -- continuous-integration/create-gitlab-release.sh
continuous-integration/create-gitlab-release.sh: export-ignore: unspecified

References

• Unneeded continuous integration(CI) files appeared in the release package (#1) · Issues · The Common / The Common Docker Compose Configuration Templates · GitLab