How can I safely update (pull) a git project, keeping specific files untouched, even if there's upstream changes?
myrepo/config/config.php
Is there a way, of, even if this file was being changed on remote, when I git pull, everything else is updated, but this file is unchanged (not even merged)?
PS. I need to do what I am asking because I'm only writing git-based deploy scripts. I cannot change config files to templates.
so, I need way to write update scripts that does not lose what was locally changed. I was hoping for something as simple as:
git assume-remote-unchanged file1
git assume-remote-unchanged file2
then git pull
This question is related to
git
We can also try git pull with rebase
git pull --rebase origin dev
If you have a file in your repo that it is supposed to be customized by most pullers, then rename the file to something like config.php.template
and add config.php
to your .gitignore
.
To answer the question : if you want to exclude certain files of a checkout, you can use sparse-checkout
In .git/info/sparse-checkout
, define what you want to keep. Here, we want all (*) but (note the exclamation mark) config.php :
/* !/config.php
Tell git you want to take sparse-checkout into account
git config core.sparseCheckout true
If you already have got this file locally, do what git does on a sparse checkout (tell it it must exclude this file by setting the "skip-worktree" flag on it)
git update-index --skip-worktree config.php
Enjoy a repository where your config.php file is yours - whatever changes are on the repository.
Please note that configuration values SHOULDN'T be in source control :
- It is a potential security breach
- It causes problems like this one for deployment
This means you MUST exclude them (put them in .gitignore before first commit), and create the appropriate file on each instance where you checkout your app (by copying and adapting a "template" file)
Note that, once a file is taken in charge by git, .gitignore won't have any effect.
Given that, once the file is under source control, you only have two choices () :
rebase all your history to remove the file (with git filter-branch
)
create a commit that removes the file. It is like fighting a loosing battle, but, well, sometimes you have to live with that.
Update: this literally answers the question asked, but I think KurzedMetal's answer is really what you want.
Assuming that:
master
master
in origin
.... you could do:
# Do a pull as usual, but don't commit the result:
git pull --no-commit
# Overwrite config/config.php with the version that was there before the merge
# and also stage that version:
git checkout HEAD config/config.php
# Create the commit:
git commit -F .git/MERGE_MSG
You could create an alias for that if you need to do it frequently. Note that if you have uncommitted changes to config/config.php
, this would throw them away.
Incase their is local uncommitted changes and avoid merge conflict while pulling.
git stash save
git pull
git stash pop
Source: Stackoverflow.com