[PATCH] D146880: Make git ignore core files

Wed Mar 29 01:10:42 PDT 2023

aidengrossman added a comment.

In D146880#4226169 <https://reviews.llvm.org/D146880#4226169>, @barannikov88 wrote:

> IMHO .gitignore is for files that are strictly project-related. Everything else should go into local .git/info/exclude.

For the most part, I agree. However, there are already some artifacts that might not be classified as strictly project related that are in the `.gitignore`. We have exceptions for things like artifacts produced by IDEs (VSCode, VS), tools like `clangd`, vim swap files, etc. I think it's sort of an arbitrary boundary on what we consider project related and what we don't. I thought this would be something reasonable to add, but I'm happy to hear feedback from the community and augment/abandon these if the consensus is against this.

> You might as well have committed any arbitrary file, e.g. 1.txt. This does not mean '*.txt' should end up in .gitignore.
> It is the committers responsibility to check that everything is OK, and there is also a review process.

Right, it could've been any arbitrary file. I have been making sure to check my commits more carefully as well. However, I think `core` files are slightly different. With Linux development, I think there's a reasonable expectation they'll pop up at some point in places they're not supposed to, they're large in size which impacts repository size when they end up in tree, and if there's just a file named `core`, it's almost certainly a core dump and not meant to end up in tree. I also don't think there's a large cost to adding it to the `.gitignore` as long as it doesn't create any off-target effects.

================
Comment at: .gitignore:26
+# Ignore core files that might accidentally end up in the repository.
+*core

----------------
JDevlieghere wrote:
> Should this be just `core` (i.e. without the `*`)? At least on Linux `core` is the default core file name, right? An on macOS they're off by default and end up under `/cores` anyway. 
> 
> We have a few core files checked in as part of the LLDB test suite but they usually have a descriptive name, such as `subject.core` that would get matched with the current pattern.  
Good point. The default file name on Linux is just `core`. My original thinking was that this would still catch things if the default file name is modified (ie if a timestamp/PID/executable name gets appended which I think is a reasonably common configuration), but this definitely does increase the chance for offtarget effects.

I've changed it to match a file called `core` in any directory. I checked with `git check-ignore` across the whole monorepo and there were no off-target matches, and I think this should be reasonable, but I'd like your thoughts on this (e.g., if we want to restrict it further, maybe even to just the root directory).

Repository:
  rG LLVM Github Monorepo

CHANGES SINCE LAST ACTION
  https://reviews.llvm.org/D146880/new/

https://reviews.llvm.org/D146880