Question

I have a public repository on Github. It’s an online web service. We just want to share source codes of our web service. We are storing all connections datas and functions on connect.php file. And including it to other files, when necessary. We want to hide this file from all visitors except collaborators of repository.

Is it possible? Or are there other way?

Answer 1

What you want to do is stop Git from tracking the file changes.

1. Move any sensitive strings from connect.php into a new file called config.php
2. Fill in with sample string
3. Include config.php in connect.php
4. Commit to Git
5. Use git update-index --assume-unchanged <file> to stop tracking updates to this file.
6. Update the file with your production strings
7. If you ever need to track changes again use git update-index --no-assume-unchanged <file>