.gitattributes other than top-level

[MageSlayer]

Hi

I'd like to clarify .gitattributes placement requirements.
Is it really necessary to keep it always at root to be able to encrypt/decrypt files?

Official Git documentation states quite a lot of other rules to ease .gitattributes placement - https://git-scm.com/docs/gitattributes . Rules like parent dirs, global ones, etc.

Or maybe some technical issues prevent it from following all official rules?

BR

[jmurty]

Hi,

The main encrypt / decrypt features of transcrypt should work no matter where attributes are defined, as long as git itself can find them.

However transcrypt's initialisation and --uninstall features currently only work with a .gitattributes file in one of the following locations:

• Root of the repo (the default)
• A path set via the core.attributesFile git config setting
• ${GIT_DIR}/info/attributes for a bare repository

See the simple file resolution process here:

transcrypt/transcrypt

Lines 111 to 119 in efd42e5

	local CORE_ATTRIBUTES
	CORE_ATTRIBUTES=$(git config --get --local --path core.attributesFile 2>/dev/null || git config --get --path core.attributesFile 2>/dev/null || printf '')
	if [[ $CORE_ATTRIBUTES ]]; then
	readonly GIT_ATTRIBUTES=$CORE_ATTRIBUTES
	elif [[ $IS_BARE == 'true' ]] || [[ $IS_VCSH == 'true' ]]; then
	readonly GIT_ATTRIBUTES="${GIT_DIR}/info/attributes"
	else
	readonly GIT_ATTRIBUTES="${REPO}/.gitattributes"
	fi

You should be able to put attributes in any location you like by setting the core.attributesFile git config setting, or just move the lines from the repo's root .gitattributes file to the location you want after initialising the repository.

But this might not work with the contexts feature that lets you set different passwords for different sets of files in the repository. For this feature to work transcrypt must know the file path to read contexts from (see the function here

transcrypt/transcrypt

Line 1161 in efd42e5

get_contexts_from_git_attributes() {

)

Is there something in particular you are trying to achieve where different location(s) for attributes would be helpful?

[MageSlayer]

Thanks for the detailed answer. I've got the information I need.

I am just trying to investigate possible ways to split single .gitattributes file between several sub-projects in one monorepo. I also this information might also be useful to other project users.

Free free to close the issue, as soon as you feel it's completed.