# GitAttributes in AL projects (Business Central)

_Published: 2023-01-04 · Author: Finn_

## GitAttributes in AL projects

Help GitHub detect that your project is written in the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central AL language.

## Explanation

The [AL Language](https://github.com/microsoft/AL) is used for developing and customizing the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central solution.

It took a while before the AL language was recognized by GitHub and at first it was called AL Code,
before it was [renamed](https://github.com/github/linguist/pull/5023/files) to AL.

This means that your older projects might be detected as written in Perl.

![Image Hello World app recognized as written in the Perl language](/assets/images-01/HelloWorld-Perl.png)

## Adding a .gitattributes file to your project

The solution is to add a new file in the root of your old AL projects.

Name the file `.gitattributes` and insert the following line and save it.

````text
*.al linguist-language=AL
````

You can add the file directly on GitHub by choosing Add file, Create new file.
The project is then correctly detected as being an AL project, and you can filter your GitHub repositories by the AL language.

![Search for projects written in the AL language](/assets/images-01/SearchAL.png)

## Example

[finnpedersenkazes/TestChallenge](https://github.com/finnpedersenkazes/TestChallenge)

## GitHub Documentation

[github/linguist/overrides](https://github.com/github/linguist/blob/master/docs/overrides.md)

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