When working with version control systems like Git, it's important to properly manage and exclude files that shouldn't be included in the repository. One common type of file that developers often want to exclude from git commits are object (obj) files. Obj files are intermediate files generated during the compilation of source code, and they are not necessary for sharing and collaborating on projects.
To exclude obj files from Git commit, you can use a .gitignore file. This file specifies intentionally untracked files that Git should ignore. Here's how you can do it:
1. Create or locate the .gitignore file in the root directory of your Git repository if it doesn't already exist.
2. Open the .gitignore file in a text editor and add the following line to exclude obj files:
```
*.obj
```
This pattern specifies that any file with the .obj extension should be ignored by Git.
3. Save the .gitignore file and commit it to your repository. From now on, Git will ignore any obj files that match the pattern.
It's important to note that the .gitignore file uses glob patterns, so you can customize it to exclude other types of files as well. For example, you can exclude all obj files in a specific directory by specifying the path:
```
build/*.obj
```
This pattern will exclude all obj files in the 'build' directory.
If you've already committed obj files to your repository before adding them to .gitignore, Git will continue to track them until you remove them from the repository's history. You can use the following steps to remove obj files from the repository:
1. Add the obj files to .gitignore as mentioned earlier.
2. Remove the obj files from the repository's history using the git filter-branch command:
```
git filter-branch --force --index-filter 'git rm --cached --ignore-unmatch *.obj' --prune-empty --tag-name-filter cat -- --all
```
3. Push the changes to the remote repository with the --force option to update the history.
By following these steps, you can effectively exclude obj files from Git commits and keep your repository clean and focused on the essential source code and assets. Properly managing obj files and other unnecessary artifacts in version control will ensure a more efficient and organized development process.
