Mastering GitLab 12

Binary blobs

Git and CVS handle binary files differently. In CVS, it is harder to handle them since you have to explicitly label them as binary. If you don't, you run the risk of corrupting the file with unwanted LR/LF conversions or keyword substitutions. Git, on the other hand, can automatically detect whether your file is of the binary kind. It uses the same mechanism as GNU Diffutils.

Let's create a simple binary from source and add a reserved keyword. Then, we will compile it with GCC and run it:

$ cat hello.c #include <stdio.h> int main() {    // printf() displays the string inside quotation    printf("Hello, World!$Author$");    return 0; } $ gcc hello.c -o hello $ ./hello Hello, World!$Author$

So, let's copy the binary to the CVS project that ...