That settings during the install process of msysgit is actually here to fix the value of the core.autocrlf
config.
core.autocrlf
If true, makes git convert CRLF
at the end of lines in text files to LF
when reading from the filesystem, and convert in reverse when writing to the filesystem.
The variable can be set to 'input
', in which case the conversion happens only while reading from the filesystem but files are written out with LF
at the end of lines.
Currently, which paths to consider "text" (i.e. be subjected to the autocrlf mechanism) is decided purely based on the contents.
I would insist on not trying to convert anything automagically, the side-effects are just too important (in term of potential merging conflict, especially on distributed development with different environments)
If your tools can handle Unix-style line termination, you should set them to produce Unix lines, which can then be read by Windows (VS2008, Notepad++, ...) and Unix alike, and can be processed by any 'sh' Git-scripts.
But with core.autocrlf
set to false, the decision to transform a text line termination will be a voluntary explicit one, not a background invisible side-effect one.