.gitattributes

# tell git to not change line endings. -text should also work according to https://git-scm.com/docs/gitattributes
* -crlf

# make sure git never changes line endings in certificate files by marking them as binary
*.cer binary

# treat Group Policy templates as text so they can be diffed
*.adml diff linguist-language=XML
*.admx diff linguist-language=XML
*.adm diff linguist-language=XML

# treat Group Policy back up files as text so they can be diffed
*.cmtx diff linguist-language=XML
*.inf diff linguist-language=INI
*.csv diff
*.xml diff
*.pol diff

# treat registry files as text so they can be diffed
*.reg diff

# Despite the above settings, GitHub diffs will still say "Binary file not shown." for some files because GitHub ignores this for their display of web-based diffs. 
# git diffs will work as expected, but not GitHub web-based diffs
# References:
# 1. http://stackoverflow.com/a/24382933
# "GitHub doesn't use .gitattributes files for choosing which files to show in a diff"
# 2. https://github.com/github/linguist/issues/1873#issuecomment-158671709
# "GitHub doesn't seem to honor the diff attribute"

# linguage-language is used to treat some Group Policy files as XML for repository statistics (does not affect syntax highlighting)
# https://github.com/github/linguist/blob/master/README.md#using-gitattributes
# https://github.com/github/linguist/blob/master/lib/linguist/languages.yml
# https://github.com/github/linguist/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md