Person/Zack Steinkamp/blog/posts/2022-02-15-git-diff-amxd-max

• Making 'git diff' Work For .amxd

  • My Notes
    • See also the source material at steinkamp.us/pages/posts/2022-02-15-git-diff-amxd-max.md at main · zsteinkamp/steinkamp.us · GitHub
  • #Quotes
    • Here's a quick tip if you're using git for revision control in developing Max/MSP or Max For Live devices.
    • Perhaps you have been here?
    • bash

      $ git diff
      diff --git a/cool.amxd b/cool.amxd
      index c7a9b88..afdafb1 100644
      Binary files a/cool.amxd and b/cool.amxd differ

    • .amxd files are basically JSON, but with a non-JSON file header. This binary part at the beginning makes git fall back to binary file mode when trying to show diffs. Usualy that's not very helpful.

      
      There's just a bit of configuration to make the git diff output more helpful. Here's what to do:
      

    • 1. Create a global .gitattributes file in your home directory. This will will map the .amxd file extension to a named file type that we will use later. Run this command to create the file with the correct contents:
    • bash

      echo '*.amxd binary diff=amxd' > ~/.gitattributes

    • 2. Now tell git where to find the new global .gitattributes file. Run this command:
    • bash

      git config --global core.attributesfile ~/.gitattributes

    • 3. The final step is to tell git how to convert the 'binary' file to text when displaying a diff. Add this content to your ~/.gitconfig file:
    • config

      [diff "amxd"]
        textconv = awk '(NR>1)'
        binary = true

    • 3. The final step is to tell git how to convert the 'binary' file to text when displaying a diff. Add this content to your ~/.gitconfig file:
    • config

      [diff "amxd"]
        textconv = awk '(NR>1)'
        binary = true

    • In this case, we're using awk to suppress printing the first line. That's good enough for my uses, but if you are an awk wizard and you want to use a tool like jq to work with the JSON data, perhaps you can suppress everything to the initial { on that first line.