Add file to git index while in direct mode

Hi,

Is there a preferred way to add files to git's index (instead of the annex) while in direct mode?

I am trying to use git-annex for scientific data. On linux and mac in indirect mode, the git workflow is basically unchanged, and I really like the way git annex works. Unfortunately when I use git-annex on Windows, I have not found a good way to add things to git's tree.

I've tried two things:

$ git annex proxy -- git add smallfile

This is slow because it has to copy things over to create a work tree

$ git config annex.largefiles="*.pdf or *.h5"
$ git annex add largefile.pdf

This doesn't seem to work as well as I'd like either. I'd like the equivalent of a git add command in direct mode.

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comment 1

In what way does setting annex.largefiles and using git annex add not work as well as you'd like?

Comment by joey — Thu Sep 10 22:02:19 2015

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comment 2

Sorry, I should have clarified. I was not sure how to add a commit message.

I played with a test repo and I think I figured it out. What I tried was this:

$ git init test-repo
$ touch test.txt
$ git add test.txt
$ git commit -m "initial commit"
$ git annex init
$ git config annex.largefiles="*.pdf"
$ echo "updated" > test.txt
$ git annex add test.txt
$ git annex sync -m "updated test.txt"

So if I understand correctly, in direct mode

git add -> git annex add
git commit -m MSG -> git annex sync -m MSG

git log now shows the right message, but I am still not sure how to check whether a file is in the annex or directly in the git tree. I suppose I could just make aliases for git add and git commit, but I wouldn't be able to add arbitrary files to git annex without playing with annex.largefiles. For example, if I had many small .txt files and one large file and I wanted to just add that large file to the git annex, I'd have to change the largefiles setting.

Is there a better way of doing this or is loss of functionality intrinsic until Windows symlinks work?

Comment by aloukian — Fri Sep 11 00:42:03 2015

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comment 3

You can temporarily set annex.largefiles to match no files, while running git-annex add, to force it to add the file to git instead of the annex.

git -c annex.largefiles='exclude=*' annex add somefile

Comment by joey — Fri Sep 11 17:39:05 2015

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