I have a PHP application that needs to upload photos to a remote directory, but this directory needs to be created previously in the repository in order to upload those files.
But when I send this empty directory, the repository does not recognize it.
How can I do to send an empty directory to the remote git repository?
Git does not allow having empty directories. But you can generate a hidden file inside the directory to upload this directory.
Most people do this by generating a file called .gitignore
In this way, if the data directory is empty, you can still upload the directory with the following command line:
touch data/.gitignore
Then by running the command git commit -a your remote repository will be updated with the hidden file within the desired directory.
The .gitkeep file, which can be used in your project when, for several different reasons, you want to create an empty directory and commit it at a certain point in development. Ex: When you create a directory to save files like photos, PDFs and so on ...
The .gitkeep file is just a convention between developers, and there is no mention of it (so far) on official Git , but as it is a standard among developers, it is for you to "pass on a message" to others who will see your project in the future.
Create within your project the directory you want to commit and within this directory create a file called .gitkeep, leaving something like this ...
project-dir/
├── .git
├── other-dir
└── untracked-dir
└── .gitkeep
Done, you can now run the commands git add [seus arquivos] and git commit -m [mensagem de commit] . Now when another developer comes across this file you will know what it's all about!