Why should I use core.autocrlf=true in Git?

Update 2:

Xcode 9 appears to have a "feature" where it will ignore the file's current line endings, and instead just use your default line-ending setting when inserting lines into a file, resulting in files with mixed line endings.

I'm pretty sure this bug didn't exist in Xcode 7; not sure about Xcode 8. The good news is that it appears to be fixed in Xcode 10.

For the time it existed, this bug caused a small amount of hilarity in the codebase I refer to in the question (which to this day uses autocrlf=false), and led to many "EOL" commit messages and eventually to my writing a git pre-commit hook to check for/prevent introducing mixed line endings.

Update:

Note: As noted by VonC, starting from Git 2.8, merge markers will not introduce Unix-style line-endings to a Windows-style file.

Original:

One little hiccup that I've noticed with this setup is that when there are merge conflicts, the lines git adds to mark up the differences do not have Windows line-endings, even when the rest of the file does, and you can end up with a file with mixed line endings, e.g.:

// Some code<CR><LF>
<<<<<<< Updated upstream<LF>
// Change A<CR><LF>
=======<LF>
// Change B<CR><LF>
>>>>>>> Stashed changes<LF>
// More code<CR><LF>

This doesn't cause us any problems (I imagine any tool that can handle both types of line-endings will also deal sensible with mixed line-endings--certainly all the ones we use do), but it's something to be aware of.

The other thing^* we've found, is that when using git diff to view changes to a file that has Windows line-endings, lines that have been added display their carriage returns, thus:

    // Not changed

+   // New line added in^M
+^M
    // Not changed
    // Not changed

_{* It doesn't really merit the term: "issue".}

I am a .NET developer and have used Git and Visual Studio for years. My strong recommendation is to set line endings to true. And do it as early as you can in the lifetime of your Repository.

That being said, I HATE that Git changes my line endings. Source control should only save and retrieve the work I do, it should NOT modify it. Ever. But it does.

What will happen if you don't have every developer set to true, is ONE developer eventually will set to true. This will begin to change the line endings of all of your files to LF in your repo. And when users set to false check those out, Visual Studio will warn you, and ask you to change them. You will have 2 things happen very quickly. One, you will get more and more of those warnings, the bigger your team the more you get. The second, and worse thing, is that it will show that every line of every modified file was changed(because the line endings of every line will be changed by the true guy). Eventually, you won't be able to track changes in your repo reliably anymore. It is MUCH easier and cleaner to make everyone keep to true than to try to keep everyone false. As horrible as it is to live with the fact that your trusted source control is doing something it should not. Ever.

The only specific reasons to set autocrlf to true are:

• avoid git status showing all your files as modified because of the automatic EOL conversion done when cloning a Unix-based EOL Git repo to a Windows one (see issue 83 for instance)
• and your coding tools somehow depends on a native EOL style being present in your file:
  • for instance, a code generator hard-coded to detect native EOL
  • other external batches (external to your repo) with regexp or code set to detect native EOL
  • I believe some Eclipse plugins can produce files with CRLF regardless on platform, which can be a problem.
  • You code with Notepad.exe (unless you are using a Windows 10 2018.09+, where Notepad respects the EOL character detected).

Unless you can see specific treatment which must deal with native EOL, you are better off leaving autocrlf to false (git config --global core.autocrlf false).

Note that this config would be a local one (because config isn't pushed from repo to repo)

If you want the same config for all users cloning that repo, check out "What's the best CRLF handling strategy with git?", using the text attribute in the .gitattributes file.

Example:

*.vcproj    text eol=crlf
*.sh        text eol=lf

---

Note: starting git 2.8 (March 2016), merge markers will no longer introduce mixed line ending (LF) in a CRLF file.
See "Make Git use CRLF on its “<<<<<<< HEAD” merge lines"