When git does a commit it rewrites binary files with something similar to "rewrite foobar.bin (76%)" . What is that %? Is it percent changed or percent retained from the older file. I know that git uses a binary delta for files, but I just don't know how much of a rewrite the % represents and it doesn't seem to be in the help page for "git help commit" .
Thanks!
It is attempting to rewrite CRs and LFs into a consistent format. That is, it doesn't see your binary file as binary. To force git to do this properly put the following line in .gitattributes:
*.bin -crlf -diff -merge
From this page that means:
all files with a [.bin] extension will not have carriage return/line feed translations done, won't be diffed and merges will result in conflicts leaving the original file untouched.
Its a measure of the similarity index. The similarity index is the percentage of unchanged lines. git thinks your file is text.
I believe Martin is correct, that number is the similarity index. From the git-diff man pages:
The similarity index is the percentage of unchanged lines, and the dissimilarity index is the percentage of changed lines. It is a rounded down integer, followed by a percent sign. The similarity index value of 100% is thus reserved for two equal files, while 100% dissimilarity means that no line from the old file made it into the new one.
First time I saw the number I thought my binaries were changing dramatically!.