Subject: Question on Clean/Smudge Infrastructure

From: <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 4 May 2026 12:57:21 -0400

Hi Git,

I have a edge use case that I would like to ask about.

Given a directory with a large number, say 100, text files, and a few
scattered
binary files - specified in .gitattributes as binary, what does clean smudge
do
with the binary files if they match the filter specification pattern? Are
they
ignored or processed. I am not sure that passing binary via stdin is
necessarily
portable. However, I would like to be able to explicitly ignore the binary
files
in my clean/smudge filters - either by doing a copy stdin/stdout (as I said,
probably
not portable), or sending a non-zero exit code, or some other mechanism.
The root of the use case is that the directory is subject to significant
changes
over time, and errors are sneaking in when people forget to update
.gitattributes
or name the files incorrectly. I would like to make their situation more
stable
to errors.

Thanks,
Randall

--
Brief whoami: NonStop&UNIX developer since approximately
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NonStop(211288444200000000)
-- In real life, I talk too much.