Question

I run this git add --force /dev/ cmd to add /dev devices to my repo,I get the same git-status as before. I add each file in the folder independently, but I get the same git-status.

here is my test,i get the same result,can git track block and char devices ?

yangchar@yangchar:~/verify$ git add ttyS0 --force
yangchar@yangchar:~/verify$ ll 

-rw-r--r-- 1 yangchar yangchar    71 2012-11-28 10:59 hello.c
-rw-r--r-- 1 yangchar yangchar     0 2012-11-28 11:04 new.c
drwxr-xr-x 4 yangchar yangchar  4096 2012-11-28 11:15 ooxx/
-rw-r--r-- 1 yangchar yangchar    31 2012-11-28 10:47 README.md
crw-r----- 1 yangchar yangchar 4, 64 2012-11-28 16:05 ttyS0

yangchar@yangchar:~/verify$ git st

# On branch master

nothing to commit (working directory clean)

Answer 1

No, you can not add device file to git repository. Here is a comment from git’s dir.c:

/*
 * Read a directory tree. We currently ignore anything but
 * directories, regular files and symlinks. That's because git
 * doesn't handle them at all yet. Maybe that will change some
 * day.
 *
 * Also, we ignore the name ".git" (even if it is not a directory).
 * That likely will not change.
 */

Device files in Linux are special kind of file, what makes their content track very hard (impossible?).