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Adding files to the GitHub repository

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This document provides guidance for properly adding compatible files and folder names to the GitHub repositories.

Avoid using file and folder names incompatible with Windows and Mac Operating systems (OS) when adding to our GitHub repositories. It can be difficult because most of us use only one or the other, and some of us upload files and directories into repositories via the GitHub web interface rather than committing and pushing them from our desktops.

Please avoid the following:

  • File names containing question marks

  • Names containing colons

  • Names containing pipe symbols(|)

  • Names ending with a space

  • Names ending with a period

  • File paths longer than 256 characters, with a healthy margin for error since the limit on Windows includes the full path of each file starting with the drive letter, i.e., the path in the repository plus the path of the directory it's checked out into needs to be less than 256

  • File names starting with a space

Ensuring users correctly add files and folders to GitHub is important to maintaining the functionality and efficacy of one of our most used and essential tools.





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