Track Empty Directories with git
There are times when you'd like to track an empty directory within git but there's a problem: git wont allow you to add a directory that doesn't have a file in it. The easy solution is putting an empty stub file within the directory, and the industry standard for that stub file name is .gitkeep.
You can quickly create the file and commit the "empty" directory from command line:
touch my-empty-dir/.gitkeep
git add my-empty-dir/.gitkeep
git commit -m "Adding my empty directory"
The problem is simple, the solution is easy, but I wanted to highlight that .gitkeep is the industry standard.
![9 Mind-Blowing Canvas Demos]()
The <canvas> element has been a revelation for the visual experts among our ranks. Canvas provides the means for incredible and efficient animations with the added bonus of no Flash; these developers can flash their awesome JavaScript skills instead. Here are nine unbelievable canvas demos that...
![CSS Animations Between Media Queries]()
CSS animations are right up there with sliced bread. CSS animations are efficient because they can be hardware accelerated, they require no JavaScript overhead, and they are composed of very little CSS code. Quite often we add CSS transforms to elements via CSS during...
![9 Incredible CodePen Demos]()
CodePen is a treasure trove of incredible demos harnessing the power of client side languages. The client side is always limited by what browsers provide us but the creativity and cleverness of developers always pushes the boundaries of what we think the front end can do. Thanks to CSS...
![Optimize Your Links For Print Using CSS — Show The URL]()
When moving around from page to page in your trusty browser, you get the benefit of hovering over links and viewing the link's target URL in the status bar. When it comes to page printouts, however, this obviously isn't an option. Most website printouts...
If you want to keep empty directory in git and be sure that its eventually content won’t be pushed, you have to add line in
.gitignore. Going to the point,.gitkeepis one of the methods and the more common (from my experience) is to create.gitignorewithI’d be interested where the “
.gitkeepis the industry standard” came from. Last time I was looking at a couple of repositories, the preference was an empty.gitignorefile.Good tips, Mathew and David!
@Mathew: When I use this tip, I usually include
*/as well to exclude subfolders. This can be pretty handy for thoselog/,cache, andsessionstypes of directories.