gitignore(5)

NAME

   gitignore - Specifies intentionally untracked files to ignore

SYNOPSIS

   $HOME/.config/git/ignore, $GIT_DIR/info/exclude, .gitignore

DESCRIPTION

   A gitignore file specifies intentionally untracked files that Git
   should ignore. Files already tracked by Git are not affected; see the
   NOTES below for details.

   Each line in a gitignore file specifies a pattern. When deciding
   whether to ignore a path, Git normally checks gitignore patterns from
   multiple sources, with the following order of precedence, from highest
   to lowest (within one level of precedence, the last matching pattern
   decides the outcome):

   *   Patterns read from the command line for those commands that support
       them.

   *   Patterns read from a .gitignore file in the same directory as the
       path, or in any parent directory, with patterns in the higher level
       files (up to the toplevel of the work tree) being overridden by
       those in lower level files down to the directory containing the
       file. These patterns match relative to the location of the
       .gitignore file. A project normally includes such .gitignore files
       in its repository, containing patterns for files generated as part
       of the project build.

   *   Patterns read from $GIT_DIR/info/exclude.

   *   Patterns read from the file specified by the configuration variable
       core.excludesFile.

   Which file to place a pattern in depends on how the pattern is meant to
   be used.

   *   Patterns which should be version-controlled and distributed to
       other repositories via clone (i.e., files that all developers will
       want to ignore) should go into a .gitignore file.

   *   Patterns which are specific to a particular repository but which do
       not need to be shared with other related repositories (e.g.,
       auxiliary files that live inside the repository but are specific to
       one user's workflow) should go into the $GIT_DIR/info/exclude file.

   *   Patterns which a user wants Git to ignore in all situations (e.g.,
       backup or temporary files generated by the user's editor of choice)
       generally go into a file specified by core.excludesFile in the
       user's ~/.gitconfig. Its default value is
       $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/git/ignore. If $XDG_CONFIG_HOME is either not set
       or empty, $HOME/.config/git/ignore is used instead.

   The underlying Git plumbing tools, such as git ls-files and git
   read-tree, read gitignore patterns specified by command-line options,
   or from files specified by command-line options. Higher-level Git
   tools, such as git status and git add, use patterns from the sources
   specified above.

PATTERN FORMAT

   *   A blank line matches no files, so it can serve as a separator for
       readability.

   *   A line starting with # serves as a comment. Put a backslash ("\")
       in front of the first hash for patterns that begin with a hash.

   *   Trailing spaces are ignored unless they are quoted with backslash
       ("\").

   *   An optional prefix "!" which negates the pattern; any matching file
       excluded by a previous pattern will become included again. It is
       not possible to re-include a file if a parent directory of that
       file is excluded. Git doesn't list excluded directories for
       performance reasons, so any patterns on contained files have no
       effect, no matter where they are defined. Put a backslash ("\") in
       front of the first "!" for patterns that begin with a literal "!",
       for example, "\!important!.txt".

   *   If the pattern ends with a slash, it is removed for the purpose of
       the following description, but it would only find a match with a
       directory. In other words, foo/ will match a directory foo and
       paths underneath it, but will not match a regular file or a
       symbolic link foo (this is consistent with the way how pathspec
       works in general in Git).

   *   If the pattern does not contain a slash /, Git treats it as a shell
       glob pattern and checks for a match against the pathname relative
       to the location of the .gitignore file (relative to the toplevel of
       the work tree if not from a .gitignore file).

   *   Otherwise, Git treats the pattern as a shell glob suitable for
       consumption by fnmatch(3) with the FNM_PATHNAME flag: wildcards in
       the pattern will not match a / in the pathname. For example,
       "Documentation/*.html" matches "Documentation/git.html" but not
       "Documentation/ppc/ppc.html" or
       "tools/perf/Documentation/perf.html".

   *   A leading slash matches the beginning of the pathname. For example,
       "/*.c" matches "cat-file.c" but not "mozilla-sha1/sha1.c".

   Two consecutive asterisks ("**") in patterns matched against full
   pathname may have special meaning:

   *   A leading "**" followed by a slash means match in all directories.
       For example, "**/foo" matches file or directory "foo" anywhere, the
       same as pattern "foo". "**/foo/bar" matches file or directory "bar"
       anywhere that is directly under directory "foo".

   *   A trailing "/**" matches everything inside. For example, "abc/**"
       matches all files inside directory "abc", relative to the location
       of the .gitignore file, with infinite depth.

   *   A slash followed by two consecutive asterisks then a slash matches
       zero or more directories. For example, "a/**/b" matches "a/b",
       "a/x/b", "a/x/y/b" and so on.

   *   Other consecutive asterisks are considered invalid.

NOTES

   The purpose of gitignore files is to ensure that certain files not
   tracked by Git remain untracked.

   To stop tracking a file that is currently tracked, use git rm --cached.

EXAMPLES

           $ git status
           [...]
           # Untracked files:
           [...]
           #       Documentation/foo.html
           #       Documentation/gitignore.html
           #       file.o
           #       lib.a
           #       src/internal.o
           [...]
           $ cat .git/info/exclude
           # ignore objects and archives, anywhere in the tree.
           *.[oa]
           $ cat Documentation/.gitignore
           # ignore generated html files,
           *.html
           # except foo.html which is maintained by hand
           !foo.html
           $ git status
           [...]
           # Untracked files:
           [...]
           #       Documentation/foo.html
           [...]

   Another example:

           $ cat .gitignore
           vmlinux*
           $ ls arch/foo/kernel/vm*
           arch/foo/kernel/vmlinux.lds.S
           $ echo '!/vmlinux*' >arch/foo/kernel/.gitignore

   The second .gitignore prevents Git from ignoring
   arch/foo/kernel/vmlinux.lds.S.

   Example to exclude everything except a specific directory foo/bar (note
   the /* - without the slash, the wildcard would also exclude everything
   within foo/bar):

           $ cat .gitignore
           # exclude everything except directory foo/bar
           /*
           !/foo
           /foo/*
           !/foo/bar

SEE ALSO

   git-rm(1), gitrepository-layout(5), git-check-ignore(1)

GIT

   Part of the git(1) suite

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