1GITIGNORE(5)                      Git Manual                      GITIGNORE(5)
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NAME

6       gitignore - Specifies intentionally untracked files to ignore
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SYNOPSIS

9       $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/git/ignore, $GIT_DIR/info/exclude, .gitignore
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DESCRIPTION

12       A gitignore file specifies intentionally untracked files that Git
13       should ignore. Files already tracked by Git are not affected; see the
14       NOTES below for details.
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16       Each line in a gitignore file specifies a pattern. When deciding
17       whether to ignore a path, Git normally checks gitignore patterns from
18       multiple sources, with the following order of precedence, from highest
19       to lowest (within one level of precedence, the last matching pattern
20       decides the outcome):
21
22       ·   Patterns read from the command line for those commands that support
23           them.
24
25       ·   Patterns read from a .gitignore file in the same directory as the
26           path, or in any parent directory, with patterns in the higher level
27           files (up to the toplevel of the work tree) being overridden by
28           those in lower level files down to the directory containing the
29           file. These patterns match relative to the location of the
30           .gitignore file. A project normally includes such .gitignore files
31           in its repository, containing patterns for files generated as part
32           of the project build.
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34       ·   Patterns read from $GIT_DIR/info/exclude.
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36       ·   Patterns read from the file specified by the configuration variable
37           core.excludesFile.
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39       Which file to place a pattern in depends on how the pattern is meant to
40       be used.
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42       ·   Patterns which should be version-controlled and distributed to
43           other repositories via clone (i.e., files that all developers will
44           want to ignore) should go into a .gitignore file.
45
46       ·   Patterns which are specific to a particular repository but which do
47           not need to be shared with other related repositories (e.g.,
48           auxiliary files that live inside the repository but are specific to
49           one user’s workflow) should go into the $GIT_DIR/info/exclude file.
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51       ·   Patterns which a user wants Git to ignore in all situations (e.g.,
52           backup or temporary files generated by the user’s editor of choice)
53           generally go into a file specified by core.excludesFile in the
54           user’s ~/.gitconfig. Its default value is
55           $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/git/ignore. If $XDG_CONFIG_HOME is either not set
56           or empty, $HOME/.config/git/ignore is used instead.
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58       The underlying Git plumbing tools, such as git ls-files and git
59       read-tree, read gitignore patterns specified by command-line options,
60       or from files specified by command-line options. Higher-level Git
61       tools, such as git status and git add, use patterns from the sources
62       specified above.
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PATTERN FORMAT

65       ·   A blank line matches no files, so it can serve as a separator for
66           readability.
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68       ·   A line starting with # serves as a comment. Put a backslash ("\")
69           in front of the first hash for patterns that begin with a hash.
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71       ·   Trailing spaces are ignored unless they are quoted with backslash
72           ("\").
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74       ·   An optional prefix "!" which negates the pattern; any matching file
75           excluded by a previous pattern will become included again. It is
76           not possible to re-include a file if a parent directory of that
77           file is excluded. Git doesn’t list excluded directories for
78           performance reasons, so any patterns on contained files have no
79           effect, no matter where they are defined. Put a backslash ("\") in
80           front of the first "!" for patterns that begin with a literal "!",
81           for example, "\!important!.txt".
82
83       ·   The slash / is used as the directory separator. Separators may
84           occur at the beginning, middle or end of the .gitignore search
85           pattern.
86
87       ·   If there is a separator at the beginning or middle (or both) of the
88           pattern, then the pattern is relative to the directory level of the
89           particular .gitignore file itself. Otherwise the pattern may also
90           match at any level below the .gitignore level.
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92       ·   If there is a separator at the end of the pattern then the pattern
93           will only match directories, otherwise the pattern can match both
94           files and directories.
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96       ·   For example, a pattern doc/frotz/ matches doc/frotz directory, but
97           not a/doc/frotz directory; however frotz/ matches frotz and a/frotz
98           that is a directory (all paths are relative from the .gitignore
99           file).
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101       ·   An asterisk "*" matches anything except a slash. The character "?"
102           matches any one character except "/". The range notation, e.g.
103           [a-zA-Z], can be used to match one of the characters in a range.
104           See fnmatch(3) and the FNM_PATHNAME flag for a more detailed
105           description.
106
107       Two consecutive asterisks ("**") in patterns matched against full
108       pathname may have special meaning:
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110       ·   A leading "**" followed by a slash means match in all directories.
111           For example, "**/foo" matches file or directory "foo" anywhere, the
112           same as pattern "foo". "**/foo/bar" matches file or directory "bar"
113           anywhere that is directly under directory "foo".
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115       ·   A trailing "/**" matches everything inside. For example, "abc/**"
116           matches all files inside directory "abc", relative to the location
117           of the .gitignore file, with infinite depth.
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119       ·   A slash followed by two consecutive asterisks then a slash matches
120           zero or more directories. For example, "a/**/b" matches "a/b",
121           "a/x/b", "a/x/y/b" and so on.
122
123       ·   Other consecutive asterisks are considered regular asterisks and
124           will match according to the previous rules.
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CONFIGURATION

127       The optional configuration variable core.excludesFile indicates a path
128       to a file containing patterns of file names to exclude, similar to
129       $GIT_DIR/info/exclude. Patterns in the exclude file are used in
130       addition to those in $GIT_DIR/info/exclude.
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NOTES

133       The purpose of gitignore files is to ensure that certain files not
134       tracked by Git remain untracked.
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136       To stop tracking a file that is currently tracked, use git rm --cached.
137

EXAMPLES

139       ·   The pattern hello.*  matches any file or folder whose name begins
140           with hello. If one wants to restrict this only to the directory and
141           not in its subdirectories, one can prepend the pattern with a
142           slash, i.e.  /hello.*; the pattern now matches hello.txt, hello.c
143           but not a/hello.java.
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145       ·   The pattern foo/ will match a directory foo and paths underneath
146           it, but will not match a regular file or a symbolic link foo (this
147           is consistent with the way how pathspec works in general in Git)
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149       ·   The pattern doc/frotz and /doc/frotz have the same effect in any
150           .gitignore file. In other words, a leading slash is not relevant if
151           there is already a middle slash in the pattern.
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153       ·   The pattern "foo/*", matches "foo/test.json" (a regular file),
154           "foo/bar" (a directory), but it does not match "foo/bar/hello.c" (a
155           regular file), as the asterisk in the pattern does not match
156           "bar/hello.c" which has a slash in it.
157
158               $ git status
159               [...]
160               # Untracked files:
161               [...]
162               #       Documentation/foo.html
163               #       Documentation/gitignore.html
164               #       file.o
165               #       lib.a
166               #       src/internal.o
167               [...]
168               $ cat .git/info/exclude
169               # ignore objects and archives, anywhere in the tree.
170               *.[oa]
171               $ cat Documentation/.gitignore
172               # ignore generated html files,
173               *.html
174               # except foo.html which is maintained by hand
175               !foo.html
176               $ git status
177               [...]
178               # Untracked files:
179               [...]
180               #       Documentation/foo.html
181               [...]
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183
184       Another example:
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186               $ cat .gitignore
187               vmlinux*
188               $ ls arch/foo/kernel/vm*
189               arch/foo/kernel/vmlinux.lds.S
190               $ echo '!/vmlinux*' >arch/foo/kernel/.gitignore
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192
193       The second .gitignore prevents Git from ignoring
194       arch/foo/kernel/vmlinux.lds.S.
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196       Example to exclude everything except a specific directory foo/bar (note
197       the /* - without the slash, the wildcard would also exclude everything
198       within foo/bar):
199
200               $ cat .gitignore
201               # exclude everything except directory foo/bar
202               /*
203               !/foo
204               /foo/*
205               !/foo/bar
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SEE ALSO

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

212       Part of the git(1) suite
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216Git 2.24.1                        12/10/2019                      GITIGNORE(5)
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