How to make git LFS not apply to a subdirectory

Question

My repository uses git LFS and includes lines such as this one in its .gitattributes:

*.jar filter=lfs diff=lfs merge=lfs -text

There's one .jar file that I want to store in the repo directly, not involving LFS. Ideally, I would make LFS not apply to anything under the directory that contains that jar. Is there a way to do that?

Quadrifid

Answer 1

This answer is largely sourced from this github comment

The syntax for .gitattributes allows you to "minus" an attribute -- removing it from already being included (see: https://git-scm.com/docs/gitattributes#gitattributes-Unset)

This allows you un-lfs a file that was previously included (the example from the github thread):

*.asset filter=lfs diff=lfs merge=lfs -text
Assets/Resources/*.asset -filter=lfs -diff=lfs -merge=lfs -text

Dannielledannon

Answer 2

Something similar to this just worked for us.

*.asset filter=lfs diff=lfs merge=lfs -text
TheAssetIWantToExclude.asset !filter !diff !merge -text

This was for git version 2.17.1.windows.2 today. Comments further in Anthony Sottile's github link provided this answer.

For the existing file we used

git rm --cached TheAssetIWantToExclude.asset
git add TheAssetIWantToExclude.asset
git commit 

to get the file copied to the repo.

Schauer

This worked for me with 2.17.1 on Ubuntu, while the accepted answer did not. – Disharmonious

Answer 3

Check out this thread: Track all files in a directory to git LFS but ignore a single folder present in that directory

TL;DR, it's not possible unless you move the folder, or use git lfs track for each individual subdir.

Hyperon

Please see my answer for an example that just worked for us on git version 2.17.1.windows.2. – Schauer

Answer 4

Looking through the documentation (https://git-scm.com/docs/gitattributes), I think that the correct syntax is actually:

*.asset filter=lfs diff=lfs merge=lfs -text
Assets/Resources/*.asset -filter -diff -merge -text

Specifically, this part:

Unset <...> this is specified by listing the name of the attribute prefixed with a dash - in the attribute list.

(https://git-scm.com/docs/gitattributes#Documentation/gitattributes.txt-Unset)

---

More than that, you can define a macro attribute (https://git-scm.com/docs/gitattributes#_defining_macro_attributes) to simplify your .gitattributes file and to make the intent clearer:

[attr]not-lfs -filter -diff -merge -text

*.asset filter=lfs diff=lfs merge=lfs -text
Assets/Resources/*.asset not-lfs

Bartels