lfc, which stands for "Large File Control," is an add-on for
git that provides a method of tracking large files in
git repositories. It is inspired by dvc but is simpler and
has a different feature set.
You can find the detailed documentation at
https://nasa.github.io/lfc-doc
Using lfc is relatively simple for anyone who's already familiar with git.
For some of the main git commands, there is a similar lfc command.
To start using
lfcin an existinggitrepo, just use$ lfc initYou will also need to run
$ lfc remote add NAME_OF_REMOTE PATH_TO_REMOTEThese commands work very similar to
git initandgit remote add.For any file the user (manually) declares "large", use
lfc addinstead ofgit add.$ lfc add NAME_OF_FILEThis will create (or update, if appropriate) a file
{NAME_OF_FILE}.lfcthat has identifying information about the original file. Then metadata file, with the.lfcextension, is then tracked directly bygit.To share the file(s), use
lfc push. Unlikegit push, LFC doesn't push commits but rather individual files. If you calllfc pushwithout any additional arguments, it will share all the "large" files that are within the current folder (including subfolders).To retrieve large files, use
lfc pull. Like thepushcommand, this operates on inidividual files but is possible to run from the top-level folder in order to get the current version of all large files.
The way it works is that users declare individual files "large," which means that when users clone, pull, or fetch from a repo, those files are not automatically downloaded but instead can be retrieved on-demand. This has two main advantages:
- you can clone a repo with large files quickly, but without the large files (for example to work on an input file); and
- in cases where the large file(s) is (are) needed, you only need the most recent version instead of the whole history of that file.
In general, LFC is for any project that uses git but also generates large files or even small files that happen to be binary. Here are some specific example use cases where LFC might be useful.
- You're working in computational fluid dynamics (CFD) that requires very large inputs and produces even larger outputs, and you'd like to make the whole process reproducible without resorting to ad hoc scripts.
- You're a 21st-century developer using modern programming tools and git version control, but your colleagues keep sending you Word and Excel files that are the inputs to your process. You can use LFC to track those documents in a traceable and reliable way.
- You have a process that generates binary output files and you'd like to keep track of all the different versions of those files without having to store all of them locally.
- You have a repo that generates some binary files (which may or may not be "large"), for example a picture, every day. You'd like users to be able to clone the repo that makes and tracks those pictures but not have to download the entire picture-of-the-day archive when they clone the repo.
- And many others.
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