Something like gitignore but not git ignore

Question

I want to ignore a file containing database-passwords and such. I asked a friend who set up the git if I could us gitignore. He said "no, because there is already a file with dummy data in the repository, there is another function that you should use, I don't remember what it's called, google it!"

I tried googleing, but given the information it's pretty tricky, does anyone know what function he is talking about?

Answer 1

If you add the file to .git/info/exclude - it will ignored, and this exclude file is local to your repository and will not be available to others.

Answer 2

You should use a gitattribute filter driver

That way:

• on the checkout step, a 'smudge' script can replace the content of your file by whatever you want, saving its original content first (that is, assuming the content of that file is specific enough to be detected as the right content, since a filter driver is about the content of files, not about a specific file pathname).
• and/or on the commit step, a 'clean' script can restore the same file in its original content (again assuming the modified content is specific enough to be detected and replaced)

Answer 3

Here's an alternative to gitignore:

Ignore the .gitignore file itself