Preventing a single file from being overwritten by git commits

Asked Oct 20 '21 at 12:52

Active Oct 20 '21 at 23:50

Viewed 79 times

I have a Heroku-hosted Sinatra app, on which users submit data via a form. The data is saved to a JSON file local to the app. I'm using the standard

git push heroku master

to deploy the app.

Is there a way I can prevent the loss of these user submissions by that file being accidentally overwritten by subsequent commits? I figure that as long as I don't modify the file on my end, it won't be touched by the deployment process. But is there a better way of "locking" the file?

asked Oct 20 '21 at 12:52

fullstackplus

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Put it in a `.gitignore` to be sure it won't be later tracked? – Romain Valeri Oct 20 '21 at 12:59
I've considered that, but then if it gets modified on the server (for any reason) will I be able to roll back the changes? – fullstackplus Oct 20 '21 at 13:19
Not via git, or else it'll be considered tracked until that point. – Romain Valeri Oct 20 '21 at 13:28
@RomainValeri, that's not how Git ignores work: they only prevent files from being tracked in the first place. Once a file is tracked, it's tracked. – ChrisGPT was on strike Oct 20 '21 at 23:46
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"The data is saved to a JSON file local to the app"—this won't work on Heroku no matter how you slice it. The ephemeral filesystem will cause your file to be lost every time your dyno restarts, which happens at least once per day. – ChrisGPT was on strike Oct 20 '21 at 23:47
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@Chris I guess I've been unclear, because it was also my point : if it's one versioned, it's tracked "forever" afterwards. – Romain Valeri Oct 21 '21 at 07:17

Preventing a single file from being overwritten by git commits

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