I'm using git with my team and would like to remove whitespace changes from my diffs, logs, merges, etc. I'm assuming that the easiest way to do this would be for git to automatically remove trailing whitespace (and other whitespace errors) from all commits as they are applied.
I have tried to add the following to by ~/.gitconfig file but it doesn't do anything when I commit. Maybe it's designed for something different. What's the solution?
[core]
whitespace = trailing-space,space-before-tab
[apply]
whitespace = fix
I'm using ruby in case anyone has any ruby specific ideas. Automatic code formatting before committing would be the next step, but that's a hard problem and not really causing a big problem.
This question is related to
git
whitespace
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You can trick Git into fixing the whitespace for you, by tricking Git into treating your changes as a patch. In contrast to the "pre-commit hook" solutions, these solutions add whitespace-fixing commands to Git.
Yes, these are hacks.
The following Git aliases are taken from
my ~/.gitconfig.
By "robust" I mean that these aliases run without error, doing
the right thing, regardless of whether the tree or index are dirty. However, they don't work if an interactive git rebase -i is already in progress; see my ~/.gitconfig for additional checks if you care about this corner case, where the git add -e trick described at the end should work.
If you want to run them directly in the shell, without creating a Git alias, just copy and paste everything between the double quotes (assuming your shell is Bash like).
The following fixws Git alias fixes all whitespace errors in the index,
if any, but doesn't touch the tree:
# Logic:
#
# The 'git stash save' fails if the tree is clean (instead of
# creating an empty stash :P). So, we only 'stash' and 'pop' if
# the tree is dirty.
#
# The 'git rebase --whitespace=fix HEAD~' throws away the commit
# if it's empty, and adding '--keep-empty' prevents the whitespace
# from being fixed. So, we first check that the index is dirty.
#
# Also:
# - '(! git diff-index --quiet --cached HEAD)' is true (zero) if
# the index is dirty
# - '(! git diff-files --quiet .)' is true if the tree is dirty
#
# The 'rebase --whitespace=fix' trick is from here:
# https://stackoverflow.com/a/19156679/470844
fixws = !"\
if (! git diff-files --quiet .) && \
(! git diff-index --quiet --cached HEAD) ; then \
git commit -m FIXWS_SAVE_INDEX && \
git stash save FIXWS_SAVE_TREE && \
git rebase --whitespace=fix HEAD~ && \
git stash pop && \
git reset --soft HEAD~ ; \
elif (! git diff-index --quiet --cached HEAD) ; then \
git commit -m FIXWS_SAVE_INDEX && \
git rebase --whitespace=fix HEAD~ && \
git reset --soft HEAD~ ; \
fi"
The idea is to run git fixws before git commit if you have
whitespace errors in the index.
The following fixws-global-tree-and-index Git alias fixes all whitespace
errors in the index and the tree, if any:
# The different cases are:
# - dirty tree and dirty index
# - dirty tree and clean index
# - clean tree and dirty index
#
# We have to consider separate cases because the 'git rebase
# --whitespace=fix' is not compatible with empty commits (adding
# '--keep-empty' makes Git not fix the whitespace :P).
fixws-global-tree-and-index = !"\
if (! git diff-files --quiet .) && \
(! git diff-index --quiet --cached HEAD) ; then \
git commit -m FIXWS_SAVE_INDEX && \
git add -u :/ && \
git commit -m FIXWS_SAVE_TREE && \
git rebase --whitespace=fix HEAD~2 && \
git reset HEAD~ && \
git reset --soft HEAD~ ; \
elif (! git diff-files --quiet .) ; then \
git add -u :/ && \
git commit -m FIXWS_SAVE_TREE && \
git rebase --whitespace=fix HEAD~ && \
git reset HEAD~ ; \
elif (! git diff-index --quiet --cached HEAD) ; then \
git commit -m FIXWS_SAVE_INDEX && \
git rebase --whitespace=fix HEAD~ && \
git reset --soft HEAD~ ; \
fi"
To also fix whitespace in unversioned files, do
git add --intent-to-add <unversioned files> && git fixws-global-tree-and-index
These versions are easier to copy and paste, but they don't do the right thing if their side conditions are not met.
Using git add -e to "edit" the patches with the identity editor ::
(export GIT_EDITOR=: && git -c apply.whitespace=fix add -ue .) && git checkout . && git reset
git commit -m TEMP && git rebase --whitespace=fix HEAD~ && git reset --soft HEAD~
git add -u :/ && git commit -m TEMP && git rebase --whitespace=fix HEAD~ && git reset HEAD~
export GIT_EDITOR=: && git -c apply.whitespace=fix add -ue . trickBefore I learned about the git rebase --whitespace=fix trick from this answer I was using the more complicated git add trick everywhere.
If we did it manually:
Set apply.whitespace to fix (you only have to do this once):
git config apply.whitespace fix
This tells Git to fix whitespace in patches.
Convince Git to treat your changes as a patch:
git add -up .
Hit a+enterto select all changes for each file. You'll get a warning about Git fixing your whitespace errors.
(git -c color.ui=auto diff at this point reveals that your non-indexed changes are exactly the whitespace errors).
Remove the whitespace errors from your working copy:
git checkout .
Bring back your changes (if you aren't ready to commit them):
git reset
The GIT_EDITOR=: means to use : as the editor, and as a command
: is the identity.
This doesn't remove whitespace automatically before a commit, but it is pretty easy to effect. I put the following perl script in a file named git-wsf (git whitespace fix) in a dir in $PATH so I can:
git wsf | sh
and it removes all whitespace only from lines of files that git reports as a diff.
#! /bin/sh
git diff --check | perl -x $0
exit
#! /usr/bin/perl
use strict;
my %stuff;
while (<>) {
if (/trailing whitespace./) {
my ($file,$line) = split(/:/);
push @{$stuff{$file}},$line;
}
}
while (my ($file, $line) = each %stuff) {
printf "ex %s <<EOT\n", $file;
for (@$line) {
printf '%ds/ *$//'."\n", $_;
}
print "wq\nEOT\n";
}
I wrote this pre-commit hook, which only removes the trailing white-space from the lines which you've changed/added, since the previous suggestions tend to create unreadable commits if the target files have too much trailing white-space.
#!/bin/sh
if git rev-parse --verify HEAD >/dev/null 2>&1 ; then
against=HEAD
else
# Initial commit: diff against an empty tree object
against=4b825dc642cb6eb9a060e54bf8d69288fbee4904
fi
IFS='
'
files=$(git diff-index --check --cached $against -- | sed '/^[+-]/d' | perl -pe 's/:[0-9]+:.*//' | uniq)
for file in $files ; do
diff=$(git diff --cached $file)
if test "$(git config diff.noprefix)" = "true"; then
prefix=0
else
prefix=1
fi
echo "$diff" | patch -R -p$prefix
diff=$(echo "$diff" | perl -pe 's/[ \t]+$// if m{^\+}')
out=$(echo "$diff" | patch -p$prefix -f -s -t -o -)
if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
echo "$diff" | patch -p$prefix -f -t -s
fi
git add $file
done
Please try my pre-commit hooks, it can auto detect trailing-whitespace and remove it. Thank you!
it can work under GitBash(windows), Mac OS X and Linux!
Snapshot:
$ git commit -am "test"
auto remove trailing whitespace in foobar/main.m!
auto remove trailing whitespace in foobar/AppDelegate.m!
[master 80c11fe] test
1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
Here is an ubuntu+mac os x compatible version:
#!/bin/sh
#
# A git hook script to find and fix trailing whitespace
# in your commits. Bypass it with the --no-verify option
# to git-commit
#
if git-rev-parse --verify HEAD >/dev/null 2>&1 ; then
against=HEAD
else
# Initial commit: diff against an empty tree object
against=4b825dc642cb6eb9a060e54bf8d69288fbee4904
fi
# Find files with trailing whitespace
for FILE in `exec git diff-index --check --cached $against -- | sed '/^[+-]/d' | (sed -r 's/:[0-9]+:.*//' > /dev/null 2>&1 || sed -E 's/:[0-9]+:.*//') | uniq` ; do
# Fix them!
(sed -i 's/[[:space:]]*$//' "$FILE" > /dev/null 2>&1 || sed -i '' -E 's/[[:space:]]*$//' "$FILE")
git add "$FILE"
done
# Now we can commit
exit
Have fun
Slightly late but since this might help someone out there, here goes.
Open the file in VIM. To replace tabs with whitespaces, type the following in vim command line
:%s#\t# #gc
To get rid of other trailing whitespaces
:%s#\s##gc
This pretty much did it for me. It's tedious if you have a lot of files to edit. But I found it easier than pre-commit hooks and working with multiple editors.
To delete trailing whitespace at end of line in a file portably, use ed:
test -s file &&
printf '%s\n' H ',g/[[:space:]]*$/s///' 'wq' | ed -s file
I'd rather leave this task to your favorite editor.
Just set a command to remove trailing spaces when saving.
Those settings (core.whitespace and apply.whitespace) are not there to remove trailing whitespace but to:
core.whitespace: detect them, and raise errors apply.whitespace: and strip them, but only during patch, not "always automatically"I believe the git hook pre-commit would do a better job for that (includes removing trailing whitespace)
Note that at any given time you can choose to not run the pre-commit hook:
git commit --no-verify .cd .git/hooks/ ; chmod -x pre-commitWarning: by default, a pre-commit script (like this one), has not a "remove trailing" feature", but a "warning" feature like:
if (/\s$/) {
bad_line("trailing whitespace", $_);
}
You could however build a better pre-commit hook, especially when you consider that:
Committing in Git with only some changes added to the staging area still results in an “atomic” revision that may never have existed as a working copy and may not work.
For instance, oldman proposes in another answer a pre-commit hook which detects and remove whitespace.
Since that hook get the file name of each file, I would recommend to be careful for certain type of files: you don't want to remove trailing whitespace in .md (markdown) files!
Was thinking about this today. This is all I ended up doing for a java project:
egrep -rl ' $' --include *.java * | xargs sed -i 's/\s\+$//g'
On Mac OS (or, likely, any BSD), the sed command parameters have to be slightly different. Try this:
#!/bin/sh
if git-rev-parse --verify HEAD >/dev/null 2>&1 ; then
against=HEAD
else
# Initial commit: diff against an empty tree object
against=4b825dc642cb6eb9a060e54bf8d69288fbee4904
fi
# Find files with trailing whitespace
for FILE in `exec git diff-index --check --cached $against -- | sed '/^[+-]/d' | sed -E 's/:[0-9]+:.*//' | uniq` ; do
# Fix them!
sed -i '' -E 's/[[:space:]]*$//' "$FILE"
git add "$FILE"
done
Save this file as .git/hooks/pre-commit -- or look for the one that's already there, and paste the bottom chunk somewhere inside it. And remember to chmod a+x it too.
Or for global use (via Git commit hooks - global settings) you can put it in $GIT_PREFIX/git-core/templates/hooks (where GIT_PREFIX is /usr or /usr/local or /usr/share or /opt/local/share) and run git init inside your existing repos.
According to git help init:
Running git init in an existing repository is safe. It will not overwrite things that are already there. The primary reason for rerunning git init is to pick up newly added templates.
I found a git pre-commit hook that removes trailing whitespace.
#!/bin/sh
if git-rev-parse --verify HEAD >/dev/null 2>&1 ; then
against=HEAD
else
# Initial commit: diff against an empty tree object
against=4b825dc642cb6eb9a060e54bf8d69288fbee4904
fi
# Find files with trailing whitespace
for FILE in `exec git diff-index --check --cached $against -- | sed '/^[+-]/d' | sed -r 's/:[0-9]+:.*//' | uniq` ; do
# Fix them!
sed -i 's/[[:space:]]*$//' "$FILE"
git add "$FILE"
done
exit
the for-loop for files uses the $IFS shell variable. in the given script, filenames with a character in them that also is in the $IFS-variable will be seen as two different files in the for-loop. This script fixes it: multiline-mode modifier as given sed-manual doesn't seem to work by default on my ubuntu box, so i sought for a different implemenation and found this with an iterating label, essentially it will only start substitution on the last line of the file if i've understood it correctly.
#!/bin/sh
#
# A git hook script to find and fix trailing whitespace
# in your commits. Bypass it with the --no-verify option
# to git-commit
#
if git rev-parse --verify HEAD >/dev/null 2>&1
then
against=HEAD
else
# Initial commit: diff against an empty tree object
against=4b825dc642cb6eb9a060e54bf8d69288fbee4904
fi
SAVEIFS="$IFS"
# only use new-line character as seperator, introduces EOL-bug?
IFS='
'
# Find files with trailing whitespace
for FILE in $(
git diff-index --check --cached $against -- \
| sed '/^[+-]/d' \
| ( sed -r 's/:[0-9]+:.*//' || sed -E 's/:[0-9]+:.*//' ) \
| uniq \
)
do
# replace whitespace-characters with nothing
# if first execution of sed-command fails, try second one( MacOSx-version)
(
sed -i ':a;N;$!ba;s/\n\+$//' "$FILE" > /dev/null 2>&1 \
|| \
sed -i '' -E ':a;N;$!ba;s/\n\+$//' "$FILE" \
) \
&& \
# (re-)add files that have been altered to git commit-tree
# when change was a [:space:]-character @EOL|EOF git-history becomes weird...
git add "$FILE"
done
# restore $IFS
IFS="$SAVEIFS"
# exit script with the exit-code of git's check for whitespace-characters
exec git diff-index --check --cached $against --
[1] sed-subsition pattern: How can I replace a newline (\n) using sed? .
For Sublime Text users.
Set following properly in you Setting-User configuration.
"trim_trailing_white_space_on_save": true
OK, this is a new tack on solving this problem… My approach is to not use any hooks, but rather use filters and git attributes. What this allows you to do, is setup, on each machine you develop on, a set of filters that will strip extra trailing white space and extra blank lines at the end of files before committing them. Then setup a .gitattributes file that says which types of files the filter should be applied to. The filters have two phases, clean which is applied when adding files to the index, and smudge which is applied when adding them to the working directory.
First, tell your global config to use a global attributes file:
git config --global core.attributesfile ~/.gitattributes_global
Now, create the filter:
git config --global filter.fix-eol-eof.clean fixup-eol-eof %f
git config --global filter.fix-eol-eof.smudge cat
git config --global filter.fix-eol-eof.required true
Finally, put the fixup-eol-eof script somewhere on your path, and make it executable. The script uses sed to do some on the fly editing (remove spaces and blanks at the end of lines, and extraneous blank lines at the end of the file)
fixup-eol-eof should look like this:
#!/bin/bash
sed -e 's/[ ]*$//' -e :a -e '/^\n*$/{$d;N;ba' -e '}' $1
Lastly, create or open ~/.gitattributes_global in your favorite editor and add lines like:
pattern attr1 [attr2 [attr3 […]]]
So if we want to fix the whitespace issue, for all of our c source files we would add a line that looks like this:
*.c filter=fix-eol-eof
The filter has two phases, the clean phase which is applied when things are added to the index or checked in, and the smudge phase when git puts stuff into your working directory. Here, our smudge is just running the contents through the cat command which should leave them unchanged, with the exception of possibly adding a trailing newline character if there wasn’t one at the end of the file. The clean command is the whitespace filtering which I cobbled together from notes at http://sed.sourceforge.net/sed1line.txt. It seems that it must be put into a shell script, I couldn’t figure out how to inject the sed command, including the sanitation of the extraneous extra lines at the end of the file directly into the git-config file. (You CAN get rid of trailing blanks, however, without the need of a separate sed script, just set the filter.fix-eol-eofto something like sed 's/[ \t]*$//' %f where the \t is an actual tab, by pressing tab.)
The require = true causes an error to be raised if something goes wrong, to keep you out of trouble.
Please forgive me if my language concerning git is imprecise. I think I have a fairly good grasp of the concepts but am still learning the terminology.
This probably won't directly solve your problem, but you might want to set those via git-config in your actual project space, which edits ./.git/config as opposed to ~/.gitconfig. Nice to keep the settings consistent among all project members.
git config core.whitespace "trailing-space,space-before-tab"
git config apply.whitespace "trailing-space,space-before-tab"
Source: Stackoverflow.com