Re: [boost] [conversion] Isolating the phantom file changes problem

Subject: Re: [boost] [conversion] Isolating the phantom file changes problem
From: Dave Abrahams (dave_at_[hidden])
Date: 2013-11-27 11:25:11

Beman Dawes <bdawes_at_[hidden]> writes:

> After doing a lot of reading of git docs and about how others dealt with
> similar problems, that was also my conclusion. I'm wondering why others
> haven't suggested renormalization?

They have.

>> Since we can't fix these files in historical versions we could re-run
>> the conversion with gitattributes that unsets the text attribute for
>> the problematic files (something like "*.bat -text", "*.vsproj -text",
>> "*.svg -text"). Then in git update the gitattributes (to something
>> like "*.bat text eol=crlf", "*.vsproj text eol=crlf", "*.svg text")
>> and normalize the files so that it does what we want. We can script
>> that, so it shouldn't require too much work.
>>
>
> As long as we are sure the .gitattributes are correct, and then
> renormalize, why do we have to rerun the conversion at all? What am I
> missing?

It depends on whether you want to "correct" history or not.  If you want
to go back in time and renormalize, then all the SHAs in submodules
change, and the branches in the master repo need to be rewritten
accordingly.