Documentation/gitignore.txt

   1 gitignore(5)
   2 ============
   3
   4 NAME
   5 ----
   6 gitignore - Specifies intentionally untracked files to ignore
   7
   8 SYNOPSIS
   9 --------
  10 $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/git/ignore, $GIT_DIR/info/exclude, .gitignore
  11
  12 DESCRIPTION
  13 -----------
  14
  15 A `gitignore` file specifies intentionally untracked files that
  16 Git should ignore.
  17 Files already tracked by Git are not affected; see the NOTES
  18 below for details.
  19
  20 Each line in a `gitignore` file specifies a pattern.
  21 When deciding whether to ignore a path, Git normally checks
  22 `gitignore` patterns from multiple sources, with the following
  23 order of precedence, from highest to lowest (within one level of
  24 precedence, the last matching pattern decides the outcome):
  25
  26  * Patterns read from the command line for those commands that support
  27    them.
  28
  29  * Patterns read from a `.gitignore` file in the same directory
  30    as the path, or in any parent directory (up to the top-level of the working
  31    tree), with patterns in the higher level files being overridden by those in
  32    lower level files down to the directory containing the file. These patterns
  33    match relative to the location of the `.gitignore` file.  A project normally
  34    includes such `.gitignore` files in its repository, containing patterns for
  35    files generated as part of the project build.
  36
  37  * Patterns read from `$GIT_DIR/info/exclude`.
  38
  39  * Patterns read from the file specified by the configuration
  40    variable `core.excludesFile`.
  41
  42 Which file to place a pattern in depends on how the pattern is meant to
  43 be used.
  44
  45  * Patterns which should be version-controlled and distributed to
  46    other repositories via clone (i.e., files that all developers will want
  47    to ignore) should go into a `.gitignore` file.
  48
  49  * Patterns which are
  50    specific to a particular repository but which do not need to be shared
  51    with other related repositories (e.g., auxiliary files that live inside
  52    the repository but are specific to one user's workflow) should go into
  53    the `$GIT_DIR/info/exclude` file.
  54
  55  * Patterns which a user wants Git to
  56    ignore in all situations (e.g., backup or temporary files generated by
  57    the user's editor of choice) generally go into a file specified by
  58    `core.excludesFile` in the user's `~/.gitconfig`. Its default value is
  59    $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/git/ignore. If $XDG_CONFIG_HOME is either not set or
  60    empty, $HOME/.config/git/ignore is used instead.
  61
  62 The underlying Git plumbing tools, such as
  63 'git ls-files' and 'git read-tree', read
  64 `gitignore` patterns specified by command-line options, or from
  65 files specified by command-line options.  Higher-level Git
  66 tools, such as 'git status' and 'git add',
  67 use patterns from the sources specified above.
  68
  69 PATTERN FORMAT
  70 --------------
  71
  72  - A blank line matches no files, so it can serve as a separator
  73    for readability.
  74
  75  - A line starting with # serves as a comment.
  76    Put a backslash ("`\`") in front of the first hash for patterns
  77    that begin with a hash.
  78
  79  - Trailing spaces are ignored unless they are quoted with backslash
  80    ("`\`").
  81
  82  - An optional prefix "`!`" which negates the pattern; any
  83    matching file excluded by a previous pattern will become
  84    included again. It is not possible to re-include a file if a parent
  85    directory of that file is excluded. Git doesn't list excluded
  86    directories for performance reasons, so any patterns on contained
  87    files have no effect, no matter where they are defined.
  88    Put a backslash ("`\`") in front of the first "`!`" for patterns
  89    that begin with a literal "`!`", for example, "`\!important!.txt`".
  90
  91  - The slash '/' is used as the directory separator. Separators may
  92    occur at the beginning, middle or end of the `.gitignore` search pattern.
  93
  94  - If there is a separator at the beginning or middle (or both) of the
  95    pattern, then the pattern is relative to the directory level of the
  96    particular `.gitignore` file itself. Otherwise the pattern may also
  97    match at any level below the `.gitignore` level.
  98
  99  - If there is a separator at the end of the pattern then the pattern
 100    will only match directories, otherwise the pattern can match both
 101    files and directories.
 102
 103  - For example, a pattern `doc/frotz/` matches `doc/frotz` directory,
 104    but not `a/doc/frotz` directory; however `frotz/` matches `frotz`
 105    and `a/frotz` that is a directory (all paths are relative from
 106    the `.gitignore` file).
 107
 108  - An asterisk "`*`" matches anything except a slash.
 109    The character "`?`" matches any one character except "`/`".
 110    The range notation, e.g. `[a-zA-Z]`, can be used to match
 111    one of the characters in a range. See fnmatch(3) and the
 112    FNM_PATHNAME flag for a more detailed description.
 113
 114 Two consecutive asterisks ("`**`") in patterns matched against
 115 full pathname may have special meaning:
 116
 117  - A leading "`**`" followed by a slash means match in all
 118    directories. For example, "`**/foo`" matches file or directory
 119    "`foo`" anywhere, the same as pattern "`foo`". "`**/foo/bar`"
 120    matches file or directory "`bar`" anywhere that is directly
 121    under directory "`foo`".
 122
 123  - A trailing "`/**`" matches everything inside. For example,
 124    "`abc/**`" matches all files inside directory "`abc`", relative
 125    to the location of the `.gitignore` file, with infinite depth.
 126
 127  - A slash followed by two consecutive asterisks then a slash
 128    matches zero or more directories. For example, "`a/**/b`"
 129    matches "`a/b`", "`a/x/b`", "`a/x/y/b`" and so on.
 130
 131  - Other consecutive asterisks are considered regular asterisks and
 132    will match according to the previous rules.
 133
 134 CONFIGURATION
 135 -------------
 136
 137 The optional configuration variable `core.excludesFile` indicates a path to a
 138 file containing patterns of file names to exclude, similar to
 139 `$GIT_DIR/info/exclude`.  Patterns in the exclude file are used in addition to
 140 those in `$GIT_DIR/info/exclude`.
 141
 142 NOTES
 143 -----
 144
 145 The purpose of gitignore files is to ensure that certain files
 146 not tracked by Git remain untracked.
 147
 148 To stop tracking a file that is currently tracked, use
 149 'git rm --cached'.
 150
 151 Git does not follow symbolic links when accessing a `.gitignore` file in
 152 the working tree. This keeps behavior consistent when the file is
 153 accessed from the index or a tree versus from the filesystem.
 154
 155 EXAMPLES
 156 --------
 157
 158  - The pattern `hello.*` matches any file or folder
 159    whose name begins with `hello.`. If one wants to restrict
 160    this only to the directory and not in its subdirectories,
 161    one can prepend the pattern with a slash, i.e. `/hello.*`;
 162    the pattern now matches `hello.txt`, `hello.c` but not
 163    `a/hello.java`.
 164
 165  - The pattern `foo/` will match a directory `foo` and
 166    paths underneath it, but will not match a regular file
 167    or a symbolic link `foo` (this is consistent with the
 168    way how pathspec works in general in Git)
 169
 170  - The pattern `doc/frotz` and `/doc/frotz` have the same effect
 171    in any `.gitignore` file. In other words, a leading slash
 172    is not relevant  if there is already a middle slash in
 173    the pattern.
 174
 175  - The pattern "foo/*", matches "foo/test.json"
 176    (a regular file), "foo/bar" (a directory), but it does not match
 177    "foo/bar/hello.c" (a regular file), as the asterisk in the
 178    pattern does not match "bar/hello.c" which has a slash in it.
 179
 180 --------------------------------------------------------------
 181     $ git status
 182     [...]
 183     # Untracked files:
 184     [...]
 185     #       Documentation/foo.html
 186     #       Documentation/gitignore.html
 187     #       file.o
 188     #       lib.a
 189     #       src/internal.o
 190     [...]
 191     $ cat .git/info/exclude
 192     # ignore objects and archives, anywhere in the tree.
 193     *.[oa]
 194     $ cat Documentation/.gitignore
 195     # ignore generated html files,
 196     *.html
 197     # except foo.html which is maintained by hand
 198     !foo.html
 199     $ git status
 200     [...]
 201     # Untracked files:
 202     [...]
 203     #       Documentation/foo.html
 204     [...]
 205 --------------------------------------------------------------
 206
 207 Another example:
 208
 209 --------------------------------------------------------------
 210     $ cat .gitignore
 211     vmlinux*
 212     $ ls arch/foo/kernel/vm*
 213     arch/foo/kernel/vmlinux.lds.S
 214     $ echo '!/vmlinux*' >arch/foo/kernel/.gitignore
 215 --------------------------------------------------------------
 216
 217 The second .gitignore prevents Git from ignoring
 218 `arch/foo/kernel/vmlinux.lds.S`.
 219
 220 Example to exclude everything except a specific directory `foo/bar`
 221 (note the `/*` - without the slash, the wildcard would also exclude
 222 everything within `foo/bar`):
 223
 224 --------------------------------------------------------------
 225     $ cat .gitignore
 226     # exclude everything except directory foo/bar
 227     /*
 228     !/foo
 229     /foo/*
 230     !/foo/bar
 231 --------------------------------------------------------------
 232
 233 SEE ALSO
 234 --------
 235 linkgit:git-rm[1],
 236 linkgit:gitrepository-layout[5],
 237 linkgit:git-check-ignore[1]
 238
 239 GIT
 240 ---
 241 Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite