Request: a way to ignore .gitattributes

[Sean MacLennan <seanm@seanm.ca>]

Hi,

We have a git repo that is a mirror of an svn repo. The tools create a
huge .gitattribute file that is about 83,000 entries. Almost all are of
the form: <path> -text

This file kills git grep. A grep that takes <1s without the file takes
almost 2 minutes with the file. So git grep it unusable.

My current solution is to rename the file:

-#define GITATTRIBUTES_FILE ".gitattributes"
+#define GITATTRIBUTES_FILE ".gitattributes-no"

But I would like a cleaner solution so I don't have to maintain my own
git.

My request is more for what would be the best gitish way to solve this;
I am willing to do the actual patch.

This needs to be something in the local config and not global. My
current thoughts are:

1) A way to override the default name (much like I do now):
   gitattributesfile = .gitattributes-no

2) A flag variable:
   gitattributes = ignore
        or
   ignoreattributes = true

I personally like 1) because it would also work for the case where you
want to override a bad .gitattributes file (that you have no control
over) with a good .gitattributes file. I just think it would be more
generally useful.

But I would like to pick a solution that is most likely to get
accepted.

Cheers,
   Sean MacLennan