Workaround for storing empty directories in Git

README

This is a workaround for storing empty directories in Git.

People have suggested things like storing empty .gitignore files in every empty 
directory, but sometimes this is not something we want to do. Instead, use 
git-store-dirs to create a file named ".emptydirs" at the top of the working 
tree that contains a null-separated list of all empty directories, and use 
git-restore-dirs to get them all back.

git-restore-dirs

#!/bin/sh

# git-restore-dirs
# Restore empty directories created by git-store-dirs(1)

dirfile=.emptydirs
test -d .git/. || { echo $0: Has to be run from the toplevel of the working tree >&2; exit 1; }
test -e $dirfile || { echo $0: No $dirfile file found >&2; exit 1; }
xargs -0 mkdir -p <$dirfile

git-store-dirs

#!/bin/sh

# git-store-dirs
# Store a list of all directories to $dirfile to be able to restore empty 
# directories. The list is \0-separated in case there are some directory names 
# containing (ugh) \n. Use git-restore-dirs(1) to recreate directories.

dirfile=.emptydirs
test -d .git/. || { echo $0: Has to be run from the toplevel of the working tree >&2; exit 1; }
find -type d -empty -print0 | grep -E -v -z '/\.git(/|$)' | LC_ALL=C sort -z >$dirfile
test "$(cat $dirfile)" = "" &&
    (
        git reset $dirfile
        rm $dirfile
        echo "$0: No empty directories found, deleting $dirfile" >&2
    ) || git add $dirfile

another workaround

before adding to git

find ./ -type d -empty ! -regex './.git/.*' -exec touch {}/.empty ;

then git add . (if that suits)

after restore delete the .empty files, only deletes .empty files that are actually empty.

find ./ -type f -name .empty -empty -exec rm {} ;