[git] Commit empty folder structure (with git)

I have data directory in project's root. It has images directory and some files. Here is example:

data
+-- images
¦   +-- image1.jpg
¦   +-- image2.jpg
¦   +-- image3.jpg 
+-- results.csv
+-- r.txt

What to write in gitignore, to ignore files from data/ directory (that is results.csv and r.txt) and files from images/ directory (image.jpg, image2.jpg, image3.jpg)?

When I commit it, folder structure in repository should be:

data/
+-- images/

So, I just want empty folder structure to be commited.

According to their FAQ, GIT doesn't track empty directories.

Git FAQ

However, there are workarounds based on your needs and your project requirements.

Basically if you want to track an empty directory you can place a .gitkeep file in there. The file can be blank and it will just work. This is Gits way of tracking an empty directory.

Another option is to provide documentation for the directory. You can just add a readme file in it describing its expected usage. Git will track the folder because it has a file in it and you have now provided documentation to you and/or whoever else might be using the source code.

If you are building a web app you may find it useful to just add an index.html file which may contain a permission denied message if the folder is only accessible through the app. Codeigniter does this with all their directories.

Just add a file .gitkeep in every folder you want committed.

On windows do so by right clicking when in the folder and select: Git bash from here. Then type: touch .gitkeep

This is easy.

tell .gitignore to ignore everything except .gitignore and the folders you want to keep. Put .gitignore into folders that you want to keep in the repo.

Contents of the top-most .gitignore:

# ignore everything except .gitignore and folders that I care about:
*
!images*
!.gitignore

In the nested images folder this is your .gitignore:

# ignore everything except .gitignore
*
!.gitignore

Note, you must spell out in the .gitignore the names of the folders you don't want to be ignored in the folder where that .gitignore is located. Otherwise they are, obviously, ignored.

Your folders in the repo will, obviously, NOT be empty, as each one will have .gitignore in it, but that part can be ignored, right. :)

Consider also just doing mkdir -p data/images in your Makefile, if the directory needs to be there during build.

If that's not good enough, just create an empty file in data/images and ignore data.

touch data/images/.gitignore
git add data/images/.gitignore
git commit -m "Add empty .gitignore to keep data/images around"
echo data >> .gitignore
git add .gitignore
git commit -m "Add data to .gitignore"

Recursively create .gitkeep files

find . -type d -empty -not -path "./.git/*" -exec touch {}/.gitkeep \;

You can make an empty commit with git commit --allow-empty, but that will not allow you to commit an empty folder structure as git does not know or care about folders as objects themselves -- just the files they contain.

Simply add file named as .keep in images folder.you can now stage and commit and also able to add folder to version control.

Create a empty file in images folder $ touch .keep

$ git status

On branch master
Your branch is up-to-date with 'origin/master'.

Untracked files:
  (use "git add ..." to include in what will be committed)

    images/

nothing added to commit but untracked files present (use "git add" to track)

$ git add .

$ git commit -m "adding empty folder"

Traditionally whenever I've wanted to commit and empty directory structure, I create the structure and then in the leaf directories place an empty file called empty.txt.

Then when I put stuff in that's ready to commit, I can simply remove the empty.txt file and commit the real files.

i.e.

• data/
  • images/
    • empty.txt