tying files to git repository

[Jim Edwards <jedwards@ucar.edu>]

Hi,

I am a developer of scientific software, as science software we expect
and encourage users to modify source code in order to customize their
experiments.   The mechanism which has been developed to do this
predates having source code in git and we are trying to figure out a
way to minimize changes to the scientists workflow, while leveraging
the power of git to improve the process.  In the workflow the
scientist creates a 'case' using script in the repository to create a
directory structure from which they will conduct their experiment.
Part of that directory structure is a SourceMods directory where the
user can drop modified source files that will be compiled in place of
a file of the same name in the source tree.  These files are sometimes
long lived and passed from case to case and even user to user and it
is not hard to have the files get out of sync with the source tree.
We have discussed at length removing the SourceMods capability and
requiring scientists to create branches in git, but there is a lot of
resistance to this in the community.   What I would like to explore is
allowing scientists to keep the method that they are used to but at
the same time tying these modified files to their history in git.   Is
there a way to get the git metadata associated with an individual file
so that we can treat that file as if it were in the repo?

-- 
Jim Edwards

CESM Software Engineer
National Center for Atmospheric Research
Boulder, CO