Creating Custom Zip Files with Git

Managing project distributions often requires creating archives that exclude certain files or directories. Git offers a streamlined approach to this through the .gitattributes file, enabling precise control over the contents of your archives.

Why Use Git for Custom Archives?

Utilizing Git's archiving capabilities provides several advantages:

• Consistency: Ensures that archives are generated from a specific commit, maintaining version integrity.
• Automation: Facilitates the creation of scripts for automated deployment processes.
• Customization: Allows exclusion of unnecessary files, resulting in cleaner and more efficient distributions.

Understanding the .gitattributes Configuration

The .gitattributes file defines how Git handles various files within your repository. Below is an example configuration:

Let's break down this configuration:

• General Settings:
  • * text=auto eol=lf: Normalizes line endings to LF, ensuring consistency across different operating systems.
  • *.php diff=php: Specifies that PHP files should use PHP-specific diff settings.
• Export Ignoring: The export-ignore attribute tells Git to exclude specified files or directories from the archive:
  • .editorconfig, .gitattributes, .gitignore: Configuration files not needed in the distribution.
  • /.git, /.idea: Version control and IDE-specific directories.
  • /tests, /util, /vendor: Directories containing tests, utilities, and dependencies that may not be necessary for the end-user.
  • phpunit.xml: Configuration file for PHPUnit, typically not required in the final product.

Creating the Archive

With the .gitattributes file configured, you can create a zip archive using the following command:

git archive --worktree-attributes --format=zip --output="$(basename "$PWD").zip" HEAD

This command generates a zip file of the current project, excluding the files and directories specified with the export-ignore attribute.

Conclusion

Leveraging Git's archiving features through the .gitattributes file allows for efficient and customized distribution of your projects. By specifying which files to exclude, you can create cleaner archives tailored to your deployment needs.