GeezerVison

GitHub provides an engine that classifies source code that takes into account various factors, so may not always get it right. When it comes to relational database development, a common file extension would be .sql. However, with many different relational databases, it can be hard to determine which is the correct RDBMS the code relates to.

A case in point is a repository I came across, has the following classifications:




However, I happen to know in this scenario all source code directly relates to an Oracle database and such I believe all should be classified as PL/SQL.

So, how can we solve this dilemma for accurate reporting?

The engine for determining the language is under the package linguist. Within that repository there is a section Override which explains how you can override the chosen language very easily.

As it explains, create a file in the root of your repository if you don't already have one, .gitattributes, and specify the linguist-language property to that of any file extensions that are being miscategorised.

So, within that file, to clasify all sql files as PL/SQL code, create a line that looks like this:

*.sql linguist-language=PLSQL

After this change, this repository will start reporting the correct language:



Not only is this good for showing useful file stats within the repository, but the project will now have that source type as the primary language - so if I'm searching for some code, I could specify the language - and my project will be returned (before, it was classified as TSQL so wasn't being returned in this search)