git/Documentation/technical/api-gitattributes.txt

gitattributes API
=================

gitattributes mechanism gives a uniform way to associate various
attributes to set of paths.


Data Structure
--------------

`struct git_attr`::

	An attribute is an opaque object that is identified by its name.
	Pass the name and its length to `git_attr()` function to obtain
	the object of this type.  The internal representation of this
	structure is of no interest to the calling programs.

`struct git_attr_check`::

	This structure represents a set of attributes to check in a call
	to `git_checkattr()` function, and receives the results.


Calling Sequence
----------------

* Prepare an array of `struct git_attr_check` to define the list of
  attributes you would want to check.  To populate this array, you would
  need to define necessary attributes by calling `git_attr()` function.

* Call git_checkattr() to check the attributes for the path.

* Inspect `git_attr_check` structure to see how each of the attribute in
  the array is defined for the path.


Attribute Values
----------------

An attribute for a path can be in one of four states: Set, Unset,
Unspecified or set to a string, and `.value` member of `struct
git_attr_check` records it.  There are three macros to check these:

`ATTR_TRUE()`::

	Returns true if the attribute is Set for the path.

`ATTR_FALSE()`::

	Returns true if the attribute is Unset for the path.

`ATTR_UNSET()`::

	Returns true if the attribute is Unspecified for the path.

If none of the above returns true, `.value` member points at a string
value of the attribute for the path.


Example
-------

To see how attributes "crlf" and "indent" are set for different paths.

. Prepare an array of `struct git_attr_check` with two elements (because
  we are checking two attributes).  Initialize their `attr` member with
  pointers to `struct git_attr` obtained by calling `git_attr()`:

------------
static struct git_attr_check check[2];
static void setup_check(void)
{
	if (check[0].attr)
		return; /* already done */
	check[0].attr = git_attr("crlf", 4);
	check[1].attr = git_attr("ident", 5);
}
------------

. Call `git_checkattr()` with the prepared array of `struct git_attr_check`:

------------
	const char *path;

	setup_check();
	git_checkattr(path, ARRAY_SIZE(check), check);
------------

. Act on `.value` member of the result, left in `check[]`:

------------
	const char *value = check[0].value;

	if (ATTR_TRUE(value)) {
		The attribute is Set, by listing only the name of the
		attribute in the gitattributes file for the path.
	} else if (ATTR_FALSE(value)) {
		The attribute is Unset, by listing the name of the
		attribute prefixed with a dash - for the path.
	} else if (ATTR_UNSET(value)) {
		The attribute is not set nor unset for the path.
	} else if (!strcmp(value, "input")) {
		If none of ATTR_TRUE(), ATTR_FALSE(), or ATTR_UNSET() is
		true, the value is a string set in the gitattributes
		file for the path by saying "attr=value".
	} else if (... other check using value as string ...) {
		...
	}
------------

(JC)