Lars, I think this proposed solution may resolve my issue. Thanks Steve Groeger Java Runtimes Development IBM Hursley IBM United Kingdom Ltd Tel: (44) 1962 816911 Mobex: 279990 Mobile: 07718 517 129 Fax (44) 1962 816800 Lotus Notes: Steve Groeger/UK/IBM Internet: groeges@xxxxxxxxxx Unless stated otherwise above: IBM United Kingdom Limited - Registered in England and Wales with number 741598. Registered office: PO Box 41, North Harbour, Portsmouth, Hampshire PO6 3AU -----Lars Schneider <larsxschneider@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: ----- To: Jeff King <peff@xxxxxxxx> From: Lars Schneider <larsxschneider@xxxxxxxxx> Date: 06/28/2018 18:21 Cc: "brian m. carlson" <sandals@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Steve Groeger <GROEGES@xxxxxxxxxx>, git@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: Use of new .gitattributes working-tree-encoding attribute across different platform types > On Jun 28, 2018, at 4:34 PM, Jeff King <peff@xxxxxxxx> wrote: > > On Thu, Jun 28, 2018 at 02:44:47AM +0000, brian m. carlson wrote: > >> On Wed, Jun 27, 2018 at 07:54:52AM +0000, Steve Groeger wrote: >>> We have common code that is supposed to be usable across different platforms and hence different file encodings. With the full support of the working-tree-encoding in the latest version of git on all platforms, how do we have files converted to different encodings on different platforms? >>> I could not find anything that would allow us to say 'if platform = z/OS then encoding=EBCDIC else encoding=ASCII'. Is there a way this can be done? >> >> I don't believe there is such functionality. Git doesn't have >> attributes that are conditional on the platform in that sort of way. >> You could use a smudge/clean filter and adjust the filter for the >> platform you're on, which might meet your needs. > > We do have prior art in the line-ending code, though. There the > attributes say either that a file needs a specific line-ending type > (which is relatively rare), or that it should follow the system type, > which is then set separately in the config. > > I have the impression that the working-tree-encoding stuff was made to > handle the first case, but not the second. It doesn't seem like an > outrageous thing to eventually add. > > (Though I agree that clean/smudge filters would work, and can even > implement the existing working-tree-encoding feature, albeit less > efficiently and conveniently). Thanks for the suggestion Peff! How about this: 1) We allow users to set the encoding "auto". Example: *.txt working-tree-encoding=auto 2) We define a new variable `core.autoencoding`. By default the value is UTF-8 (== no re-encoding) but user can set to any value in their Git config. Example: git config --global core.autoencoding UTF-16 All files marked with the value "auto" will use the encoding defined in `core.autoencoding`. Would that work? @steve: Would that fix your problem? - Lars Unless stated otherwise above: IBM United Kingdom Limited - Registered in England and Wales with number 741598. Registered office: PO Box 41, North Harbour, Portsmouth, Hampshire PO6 3AU