PHP line breaks being messed up by GIT

Question

Our website has one section which often changes to match the user. (examples are greatly simplified).

user:Mike
last visit:Yesterday

The method used to update the content [which I cannot now change] is that php searches the html webpage for the default content, and replaces it with new content before serving it to the user.

$stats = "user:Mike
last visit:Yesterday";
$defaults = "user:Guest
last visit:None";
$code = implode($stats, explode($defaults, $code));

All was fine till we started backing up the site with GIT [a glutton for punishment, we are].

It seems that GIT changes the newline character in the html page, and therefore php can no longer find the original text.

I do not understand how newlines are stored or changed, but occasionally I get an error from GIT during the submit, saying it must change the newline, and offering 'unlock' or 'continue'.

This is followed by the site not working, till I copy/paste the default text from an externally stored copy into that page - and don't do a commit.

I am aware that I can use regex to make the search/replace but the page sees enough usage for me to avoid unneeded expressions.

My local machine runs Windows. The server runs Unix.

Answer 1

It seems it's converting Windows newlines (\r\n, or 0x0D0A) to Unix newlines (\n, or 0x0A). If your HTML contains Windows line endings, searching for a Unix-style line ending in the middle of a string won't work. You can explicitly state which one you want like this:

$stats = "user:Mike\r\nlast visit:Yesterday";

Or:

$stats = "user:Mike\nlast visit:Yesterday";

Answer 2

http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/gitattributes.html

crlf

This attribute controls the line-ending convention.

Set Setting the crlf attribute on a path is meant to mark the path as a "text" file. core.autocrlf conversion takes place without guessing the content type by inspection.

Unset Unsetting the crlf attribute on a path tells git not to attempt any end-of-line conversion upon checkin or checkout.

Tell git not to convert CRLFs by specifying crlf as Unset for the files in question and the issue should go away.

Answer 3

Check if you don't have core.autocrlf set to "input" (e.g. using "git config --get core.autocrlf").

This configuration variable makes Git convert MS Windows end-of-line convention "\r\n" (CRLF) to UNIX convention "\n" (LF). See git-config manpage for details; the crlf gitattribute that Dav mentioned in answer is to have more fine-tuned selection.

Answer 4

During install, mysGit gives the option of leaving line-breaks as they are.

This solved the problem once I upgraded.