How can I get Git to follow symlinks?

Question

What I did to add to get the files within a symlink into Git (I didn't use a symlink but):

sudo mount --bind SOURCEDIRECTORY TARGETDIRECTORY

Do this command in the Git-managed directory. TARGETDIRECTORY has to be created before the SOURCEDIRECTORY is mounted into it.

It works fine on Linux, but not on OS X! That trick helped me with Subversion too. I use it to include files from an Dropbox account, where a webdesigner does his/her stuff.

Why not create symlinks the other way around? Meaning instead of linking from the Git repository to the application directory, just link the other way around.

For example, let’s say I am setting up an application installed in ~/application that needs a configuration file config.conf:

• I add config.conf to my Git repository, for example, at ~/repos/application/config.conf.
• Then I create a symlink from ~/application by running ln -s ~/repos/application/config.conf.

This approach might not always work, but it worked well for me so far.

Use hard links instead. This differs from a soft (symbolic) link. All programs, including git will treat the file as a regular file. Note that the contents can be modified by changing either the source or the destination.

On macOS (before 10.13 High Sierra)

If you already have git and Xcode installed, install hardlink. It's a microscopic tool to create hard links.

To create the hard link, simply:

hln source destination

macOS High Sierra update

Does Apple File System support directory hard links?

Directory hard links are not supported by Apple File System. All directory hard links are converted to symbolic links or aliases when you convert from HFS+ to APFS volume formats on macOS.

From APFS FAQ on developer.apple.com

Follow https://github.com/selkhateeb/hardlink/issues/31 for future alternatives.

On Linux and other Unix flavors

The ln command can make hard links:

ln source destination

On Windows (Vista, 7, 8, …)

Use mklink to create a junction on Windows:

mklink /j "source" "destination"

NOTE: This advice is now out-dated as per comment since Git 1.6.1. Git used to behave this way, and no longer does.

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Git by default attempts to store symlinks instead of following them (for compactness, and it's generally what people want).

However, I accidentally managed to get it to add files beyond the symlink when the symlink is a directory.

I.e.:

  /foo/
  /foo/baz
  /bar/foo --> /foo
  /bar/foo/baz

by doing

 git add /bar/foo/baz

it appeared to work when I tried it. That behavior was however unwanted by me at the time, so I can't give you information beyond that.

This is a pre-commit hook which replaces the symlink blobs in the index, with the content of those symlinks.

Put this in .git/hooks/pre-commit, and make it executable:

#!/bin/sh
# (replace "find ." with "find ./<path>" below, to work with only specific paths)

# (these lines are really all one line, on multiple lines for clarity)
# ...find symlinks which do not dereference to directories...
find . -type l -exec test '!' -d {} ';' -print -exec sh -c \
# ...remove the symlink blob, and add the content diff, to the index/cache
    'git rm --cached "$1"; diff -au /dev/null "$1" | git apply --cached -p1 -' \
# ...and call out to "sh".
    "process_links_to_nondir" {} ';'

# the end

Notes

We use POSIX compliant functionality as much as possible; however, diff -a is not POSIX compliant, possibly among other things.

There may be some mistakes/errors in this code, even though it was tested somewhat.

On macOS (I have Mojave/ 10.14, git version 2.7.1), use bindfs.

brew install bindfs

cd /path/to/git_controlled_dir

mkdir local_copy_dir

bindfs </full/path/to/source_dir> </full/path/to/local_copy_dir>

It's been hinted by other comments, but not clearly provided in other answers. Hopefully this saves someone some time.