What is the purpose of `text=auto` in `.gitattributes` file?

Question

Mostly .gitattributes file has * text=auto. What is the purpose of text=auto in that file?

Answer 1

That configuration is with regard to how line endings are handled. When enabled, all line endings are converted to LF in the repository. There are other flags to deal with how line endings are converted in your working directory. Full info on the issue us here: https://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/gitattributes.html