1GITIGNORE(5) Git Manual GITIGNORE(5)
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6 gitignore - Specifies intentionally untracked files to ignore
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9 $GIT_DIR/info/exclude, .gitignore
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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.
15 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 · Patterns read from the command line for those commands that support
23 them.
24 · 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.
33 · Patterns read from $GIT_DIR/info/exclude.
35 · Patterns read from the file specified by the configuration variable
37 core.excludesfile.
38 Which file to place a pattern in depends on how the pattern is meant to
40 be used.
41 · 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 · 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.
50 · 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.
57 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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65 · A blank line matches no files, so it can serve as a separator for
66 readability.
67 · 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.
70 · An optional prefix "!" which negates the pattern; any matching file
72 excluded by a previous pattern will become included again. If a
73 negated pattern matches, this will override lower precedence
74 patterns sources. Put a backslash ("\") in front of the first "!"
75 for patterns that begin with a literal "!", for example,
76 "\!important!.txt".
77 · If the pattern ends with a slash, it is removed for the purpose of
79 the following description, but it would only find a match with a
80 directory. In other words, foo/ will match a directory foo and
81 paths underneath it, but will not match a regular file or a
82 symbolic link foo (this is consistent with the way how pathspec
83 works in general in Git).
84 · If the pattern does not contain a slash /, Git treats it as a shell
86 glob pattern and checks for a match against the pathname relative
87 to the location of the .gitignore file (relative to the toplevel of
88 the work tree if not from a .gitignore file).
89 · Otherwise, Git treats the pattern as a shell glob suitable for
91 consumption by fnmatch(3) with the FNM_PATHNAME flag: wildcards in
92 the pattern will not match a / in the pathname. For example,
93 "Documentation/*.html" matches "Documentation/git.html" but not
94 "Documentation/ppc/ppc.html" or
95 "tools/perf/Documentation/perf.html".
96 · A leading slash matches the beginning of the pathname. For example,
98 "/*.c" matches "cat-file.c" but not "mozilla-sha1/sha1.c".
99 Two consecutive asterisks ("**") in patterns matched against full
101 pathname may have special meaning:
102 · A leading "**" followed by a slash means match in all directories.
104 For example, "**/foo" matches file or directory "foo" anywhere, the
105 same as pattern "foo". "**/foo/bar" matches file or directory "bar"
106 anywhere that is directly under directory "foo".
107 · A trailing "/" matches everything inside. For example, "abc/"
109 matches all files inside directory "abc", relative to the location
110 of the .gitignore file, with infinite depth.
111 · A slash followed by two consecutive asterisks then a slash matches
113 zero or more directories. For example, "a/**/b" matches "a/b",
114 "a/x/b", "a/x/y/b" and so on.
115 · Other consecutive asterisks are considered invalid.
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119 The purpose of gitignore files is to ensure that certain files not
120 tracked by Git remain untracked.
121 To ignore uncommitted changes in a file that is already tracked, use
123 git update-index --assume-unchanged.
124 To stop tracking a file that is currently tracked, use git rm --cached.
126
128 $ git status
129 [...]
130 # Untracked files:
131 [...]
132 # Documentation/foo.html
133 # Documentation/gitignore.html
134 # file.o
135 # lib.a
136 # src/internal.o
137 [...]
138 $ cat .git/info/exclude
139 # ignore objects and archives, anywhere in the tree.
140 *.[oa]
141 $ cat Documentation/.gitignore
142 # ignore generated html files,
143 *.html
144 # except foo.html which is maintained by hand
145 !foo.html
146 $ git status
147 [...]
148 # Untracked files:
149 [...]
150 # Documentation/foo.html
151 [...]
152 Another example:
155 $ cat .gitignore
157 vmlinux*
158 $ ls arch/foo/kernel/vm*
159 arch/foo/kernel/vmlinux.lds.S
160 $ echo '!/vmlinux*' >arch/foo/kernel/.gitignore
161 The second .gitignore prevents Git from ignoring
164 arch/foo/kernel/vmlinux.lds.S.
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167 git-rm(1), git-update-index(1), gitrepository-layout(5), git-check-
168 ignore(1)
169
171 Part of the git(1) suite
172Git 1.8.3.1 11/19/2018 GITIGNORE(5)