Git Keeper

GitKeeper is an small tool written in C# with .net core 5 to create .gitkeep files in empty directory and remove .gitkeep files in directory with one ore more other files.

Sometimes i create empty directories as reminder (e.g. for namespaces) or because other third party tools need this empty directories. When i made lot's of changes in a directory structure or adding/removing files, and i want to commit my stuff, i running the GitKeeper again quickly.

Add new .gitkeep files

In this example you have an empty directory and want to push it also to git. Because git ignore empty directories, you can add an empty .gitkeep file, that is useful for some reasons for the next developer who pull this repository.

C:\Work>tree
C:\Work
├───Example              <- Empty directory, wouldn't be pushed to git.
└───HelloWorld.java

C:\Work>gk.exe           <- Running the tool
C:\Work
C:\Work\Example
    Directory c:\Work\Example contains no files or subfolders, i'll create an .gitkeep ...

C:\Work>tree
C:\Work
├───Example              <- Now the directory contains one empty .gitkeep, now the directory is pushed to git.
│   └───.gitkeep
└───HelloWorld.java

The tool also automatically goes through all subdirectories and checks for empty directories, too.

Remove old .gitkeep files

If there are real files in a directory, or an directory have now subdirectories, the obsolete and unnecessary .gitkeep file should be deleted.

C:\Work>tree
C:\Work
├───Example
│   ├───.gitkeep         <- This .gitkeep is obsolete and can be deleted.
│   └───HanSolo.json
└───HelloWorld.java

C:\Work>gk.exe           <- Running the tool
C:\Work
C:\Work\Example
    Directory c:\Work\Example contains an obsolete .gitkeep ...

C:\Work>tree
C:\Work
├───Example              <- The obsolete .gitkeep is deleted.
│   └───HanSolo.json
└───HelloWorld.java

Remarks

• The target framework is net5.0 and should run under linux too.
• The building should be very easy: dotnet build -c Release
• Directories with the name bin, obj, packages and build are ignorerd and get skipped, but if you you want, you can customize this for your needs.
• The gitkeep filename is .gitkeep, but you can customize it for your needs.
• I tried to keep the sourcecode simple, i deliberately did not include try catch blocks to unnecessarily enlarge the code.
• When you have no access to an file or directory, mabye the executable throws an exception and exit.

Links

• Use .gitkeep to commit and push an empty Git folder or directory
• .GITKEEP File Extension