git update-index --assume-unchanged on directory

git 1.7.12

I want to mark all files below a given directory as assume-unchanged.

1. git update-index --assume-unchanged dir/ gives "Ignoring path."

2. git update-index --assume-unchanged dir/* quickly fails because it will encounter files which are not being tracked, hence it gives "fatal: Unable to mark file" and quits.

3. Try generating a list of files to mark. cd into the desired directory and then run git ls-files | tr '\n' ' ' | git update-index --assume-unchanged. This produces no error message, but it does not successfully mark the files. The first portion of the command, git ls-files | tr '\n' ' ', correctly produces a space delimited list of all the files I want to mark. If I copy and paste the output of that command onto the command-line, then the git update-index command works. What is not working with the pipes?

No, it is not sufficient for me to add dir to .gitignore. I need these files to be in the repository, but undesired changes will be made locally that need to be ignored so that users can do pulls.

git update-index wants the file names on its command line, not on its standard input.

Step 1:

cd into the folder you want to assume is unchanged

Step 2:

You can do either this:

git update-index --assume-unchanged $(git ls-files | tr '\n' ' ')

or

git ls-files | tr '\n' ' ' | xargs git update-index --assume-unchanged

Although, with either case, file names with spaces will be problematic. If you have those, you can use this:

git ls-files -z | xargs -0 git update-index --assume-unchanged

Edit: incorporated input from @MatthewScharley regarding git ls-files -z.

Windows Commands

> Note: If you're on windows, use Git Bash to run these commands

The find command from GNU Findutils has a -exec option which removes most of the hassle of using xargs, although its syntax is a little special. It does however deal perfectly with filenames with spaces.

This command will get git to assume all files in and under the listed directory are unchanged:

find path/to/dir -type f -exec git update-index --assume-unchanged '{}' \;

Find takes every argument after -exec until ; (which you have to escape lest your shell eats it) and runs it once for each file found, while replacing {} (again, single quoted so your shell won't eat it) with the found file's name.

Using find's matching criteria (maximum recursion depth, whether the match is a file or is a directory, whether the filename matches an expression) and -exec you can do all sort of powerful things.

Not sure about other implementations of the find command. YMMV.

Add the directory name to .git/info/exclude. This works for untracked files.

Yeap,

git update-index --assume-unchanged

works with files only, not with directories. I think, one of faster ways:

cd dir
ls | xargs -l git update-index --assume-unchanged