How does git handle folder permission?
directory, git, mode, permissions
Solution
The only 'permissions' bit that `git` tracks is the executable bit for files, the rest of the mode bits describe what type of file system object the object in each git tree is. `git` supports files and symlinks (blobs), directories (trees) and the submodules (commits).
`git` is designed to help track source code across different machines. Permission bits depend on user and group mappings between machines. In distributed environments where these mappings don't exist, tracking permission bits usually ends up hindering things rather than helping anything.
If you need to track more file system attributes that what `git` tracks natively you could consider and extension tool such as etckeeper.
Problem
I'm using git version 1.5.6.3, and it seems git doesn't notice a folder's mode changes ``` #create a test repository with a folder with 777 mode :~$ mkdir -p test/folder :~$ touch test/folder/dummy.txt :~$ cd test :~/test$ chmod 777 folder/ #init git repository :~/test$ git init Initialized empty Git repository in ~/test/.git/ :~/test$ git add . :~/test$ git commit -m 'commit a directory' Created initial commit 9b6b21a: commit a directory 0 files changed, 0 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-) create mode 100644 folder/dummy.txt #change folder permission to 744 :~/test$ chmod 744 folder/ :~/test$ git status # On branch master nothing to commit (working directory clean) ``` What does `04000` stand for? ``` :~/test$ git ls-tree HEAD folder 040000 tree 726c1d5f0155771348ea2daee6239791f1cd7731 folder ``` Is this normal behavior? How can I track folder mode changes?