How do I ignore files in a directory in Git

Question

What is the proper syntax for the  gitignore file to ignore files in a directory   Would it be  config databases yml cache   log   data sql   lib filter base   lib form base   lib model map   lib model om     or   config databases yml  cache    log    data sql    lib filter base    lib form base    lib model map    lib model om

User · Answer

It would be   config databases yml cache log data sql lib filter base lib form base lib model map lib model om   or possibly even   config databases yml cache log data sql lib   base lib model map lib model om   in case that filter and form are the only directories in lib that do have a basesubdirectory that needs to be ignored  see it as an example of what you can do with the asterics

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The first one   Those file paths are relative from where your  gitignore file is

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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  An optional prefix   which negates the pattern  any matching file excluded by a previous pattern will become included again  If a negated pattern matches  this will override lower precedence patterns sources  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    You can find more here  git help gitignore or man gitignore

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A sample  gitignore file can look like one below for a Android Studio project    built application files   apk   ap     files for the dex VM   dex    Java class files   class    generated files bin  gen     Local configuration file  sdk path  etc  local properties    Eclipse   pydevproject  project  metadata bin    tmp    tmp        tmp   bak   swp    nib local properties  classpath  settings   loadpath YourProjetcName  gradle  YourProjetcName app build    YourProjetcName  gradle    YourProjetcName app build     External tool builders  externalToolBuilders     Locally stored  Eclipse launch configurations    launch    CDT-specific  cproject    PDT-specific  buildpath    Proguard folder generated by Eclipse proguard     Intellij project files   iml   ipr   iws  idea   build build    build      build        build    bin   lock YourProjetcName app build   gradle  local properties   idea workspace xml   idea libraries  DS Store  gradle  app build   app build     Local configuration file  sdk path  etc  local properties  YourProjetcName build intermediates lint-cache api-versions-6-23 1 bin appcompat v7 23 1 1 xml projectFilesBackup build gradle YourProjetcName iml YourProjetcName iml gradlew gradlew bat local properties settings gradle  gradle  idea android build gradle

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I m maintaining a GUI and CLI based service that allows you to generate  gitignore templates very easily at https   www gitignore io   You can either type the templates you want in the search field or install the command line alias and run    gi swift osx

User · Answer

Both examples in the question are actually very bad examples that can lead to data loss   My advice  never append    to directories in  gitignore files  unless you have a good reason   A good reason would be for example what Jefromi wrote   if you intend to subsequently un-ignore something in the directory    The reason why it otherwise shouldn t be done is that appending    to directories does on the one hand work in the manner that it properly ignores all contents of the directory  but on the other hand it has a dangerous side effect   If you execute git stash -u  to temporarily stash tracked and untracked files  or git clean -df  to delete untracked but keep ignored files  in your repository  all directories that are ignored with an appended    will be irreversibly deleted   Some background  I had to learn this the hard way  Somebody in my team was appending    to some directories in our  gitignore  Over the time I had occasions where certain directories would suddenly disappear  Directories with gigabytes of local data needed by our application  Nobody could explain it and I always hat to re-download all data  After a while I got a notion that it might have to do with git stash  One day I wanted to clean my local repo  while keeping ignored files  and I was using git clean -df and again my data was gone  This time I had enough and investigated the issue  I finally figured that the reason is the appended      I assume it can be explained somehow by the fact that directory   does ignore all contents of the directory but not the directory itself  Thus it s neither considered tracked nor ignored when things get deleted  Even though git status and git status --ignored give a slightly different picture on it   How to reproduce  Here is how to reproduce the behaviour  I m currently using Git 2 8 4   A directory called localdata  with a dummy file in it  important dat  will be created in a local git repository and the contents will be ignored by putting  localdata   into the  gitignore file  When one of the two mentioned git commands is executed now  the directory will be  unexpectedly  lost    mkdir test cd test git init echo   localdata     gt  gitignore git add  gitignore git commit -m  Add  gitignore   mkdir localdata echo  Important data   gt localdata important dat touch untracked-file   If you do a git status --ignored here  you ll get   On branch master Untracked files     use  git add  lt file gt      to include in what will be committed     untracked-file  Ignored files     use  git add -f  lt file gt      to include in what will be committed     localdata    Now either do  git stash -u git stash pop   or  git clean -df   In both cases the allegedly ignored directory localdata will be gone   Not sure if this can be considered a bug  but I guess it s at least a feature that nobody needs   I ll report that to the git development list and see what they think about it

User · Answer

If you want to put a  gitignore file at the top level and make it work for any folder below it use         E g  to ignore all   map files in a  src main  folder and sub-folders use    src main      map

User · Answer

Paths which contain slashes are taken to be relative to the directory containing the  gitignore file - usually the top level of your repository  though you can also place them in subdirectories   So  since in all of the examples you give  the paths contain slashes  the two versions are identical  The only time you need to put a leading slash is when there isn t one in the path already  For example  to ignore foo only at the top level of the repository  use  foo  Simply writing foo would ignore anything called foo anywhere in the repository   Your wildcards are also redundant  If you want to ignore an entire directory  simply name it   lib model om   The only reason to use wildcards the way you have is if you intend to subsequently un-ignore something in the directory   lib model om          ignore everything in the directory  lib model om foo     except foo

User · Answer

It would be the former  Go by extensions as well instead of folder structure   I e  my example C  development ignore file    OS junk files  Tt humbs db   DS Store   Visual Studio files    Oo bj   user   aps   pch   vspscc   vssscc   i c   p c   ncb   suo   tlb   tlh   bak    Cc ache   ilk   log   lib   sbr   sdf ipch  obj   Bb in  Dd ebug    Rr elease   Ankh NoLoad   Tooling  ReSharper     resharper  Tt est Rr esult    Project files  Bb uild    Subversion files  svn    Office Temp Files       Update  I thought I d provide an update from the comments below  Although not directly answering the OP s question  see the following for more examples of  gitignore syntax   Community wiki  constantly being updated     gitignore for Visual Studio Projects and Solutions  More examples with specific language use can be found here  thanks to Chris McKnight s comment    https   github com github gitignore

User · Answer

A leading slash indicates that the ignore entry is only to be valid with respect to the directory in which the  gitignore file resides  Specifying   o would ignore all  o files in this directory and all subdirs  while    o would just ignore them in that dir  while again   foo   o would only ignore them in  foo   o

[git] How do I ignore files in a directory in Git?

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