Using git, how do I ignore a file in one branch but have it committed in another branch?
I've got a project that I'm deploying to Heroku. The source code tree includes a bunch of mp3 files (the website will be for a recording project I was heavily involved with).
I'd like to put the source code for it up on GitHub, but GitHub has a 300 MB limit on their free accounts. I don't want to use 50 MB of my limit on a bunch of mp3 files. Obviously, I could add them to the .gitignore file to keep them out of my repo.
However, I deploy to Heroku using git push heroku. The mp3 files must be present in the branch I push to Heroku so that they get get deployed.
Ideally, I'd like to .gitignore the mp3 files in my local master branch so that when I push that to GitHub, the mp3s are not included. Then I'd keep a local production branch that has the mp3s committed rather than ignored. To deploy, I would merge master into production, and then push the production branch to Heroku.
I can't get this to work right.
Here's an example of what I'm trying to do...
$ git init git-ignore-test
$ cd git-ignore-test
$ echo "*.ignored" >> .gitignore
$ git add .gitignore && git commit -m "Ignore .ignored files"
$ touch Foo.ignored
At this point, Foo.ignored is ignored in my master branch, but it's still present, so my project can use it.
$ git checkout -b unignored
$ cat /dev/null > .gitignore
$ git add Foo.ignored .gitignore && git commit -m "Unignore .ignored files"
Now I've got a branch with these files committed, as I want. However, when I switch back to my master branch, Foo.ignored is gone.
Anyone got any suggestions for a better way to set this up?
Edit: just to clarify, I want the mp3 files to be present in both branches so that when I run the site locally (using either branch) the site works. I just want the files ignored in one branch so when I push to GitHub they are not pushed as well. Usually .gitignore works well for this kind of thing (i.e. keeping a local copy of a file that does not get included in a push to a remote), but when I switch to the branch with the files checked in, and then back to the branch with the files ignored, the files vanish.
Answer
This solution appears to work only for certain, patched versions of git. See a new answer pointing to workarounds and another answer and subsequent comments for a hint which versions may work.
I wrote a blog post on how to effectively use the excludesfile for different branches, like one for public github and one for heroku deployment.
Here's the quick and dirty:
$ git branch public_viewing
$ cd .git/
$ touch info/exclude_from_public_viewing
$ echo "path/to/secret/file" > info/exclude_from_public_viewing
then in the .git/config file add these lines:
[core]
excludesfile = +info/exclude
[branch "public_viewing"]
excludesfile = +info/exclude_from_public_viewing
Now all the global ignore stuff is in the info/exclude file and the branch specific is in the info/exclude_from_public_viewing
Hope that helps!
http://cogniton-mind.tumblr.com/post/1423976659/howto-gitignore-for-different-branches