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