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uptoyou
Asked: 2019-05-16 08:17:57 +0800 CST

Why does `file -i` determines file encoding as ASCII, however it is UTF-8 actually in git repository

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There are two cases, which i confused about:

  1. If newly created file contains only latin symbols, then file -i will show us-ascii.
  2. If newly created file contains only latin and cyrillic symbols, then file -i will show utf-8

I tested this behavior with several tools for creating files within local copy of git repository: intellij idea, nano, echo etc.

However, when i push this files to remote repository, participants on Windows OS determines this files as UTF-8.

locale git encoding utf-8 ascii

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    So, since there is no BOM generated during file creation - there is no way to distinguish ASCII and UTF-8. So in terms of correct prediction of file encoding - it is better to answer ASCII, than UTF-8 (if both contains only latin characters), since UTF-8 involves more char-codes.

    Therefore file -i doing all the best.

    Thanks fedonkadifeli for the help.

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