[git] Is there an ignore command for git like there is for svn?

I am a new user to git and I am starting a new project. I have a bunch of dot files that I would like to ignore. Is there an ignore command for git like there is for svn?

You could also use Joe Blau's gitignore.io

Either through the web interfase https://www.gitignore.io/

Or by installing the CLI tool, it's very easy an fast, just type the following on your terminal:

Linux:
echo "function gi() { curl -L -s https://www.gitignore.io/api/\$@ ;}" >> ~/.bashrc && source ~/.bashrc

OSX:
echo "function gi() { curl -L -s https://www.gitignore.io/api/\$@ ;}" >> ~/.bash_profile && source ~/.bash_profile

And then you can just type gi followd by the all the platform/environment elements you need gitignore criteria for.

Example!
Lets say you're working on a node project that includes grunt and you're using webstorm on linux, then you may want to type:
gi linux,webstorm,node,grunt > .gitignore ( to make a brand new file)
or
gi linux,webstorm,node,grunt >> .gitignore ( to append/add the new rules to an existing file)

bam, you're good to go

Create a file named .gitignore on the root of your repository. In this file you put the relative path to each file you wish to ignore in a single line. You can use the * wildcard.

On Linux/Unix, you can append files to the .gitignore file with the echo command. For example if you want to ignore all .svn folders, run this from the root of the project:

echo .svn/ >> .gitignore

It's useful to define a complete .gitignore file for your project. The reward is safe use of the convenient --all or -a flag to commands like add and commit.

Also, consider defining a global ~/.gitignore file for commonly ignored patterns such as *~, which covers temporary files created by Emacs.

You have two ways of ignoring files:

• .gitignore in any folder will ignore the files as specified in the file for that folder. Using wildcards is possible.
• .git/info/exclude holds the global ignore pattern, similar to the global-ignores in subversions configuration file.

You have to install git-extras for this. You can install it in Ubuntu using apt-get,

$ sudo apt-get install git-extras

Then you can use the git ignore command.

$ git ignore file_name

Using the answers already provided, you can roll your own git ignore command using an alias. Either add this to your ~/.gitconfig file:

ignore = !sh -c 'echo $1 >> .gitignore' -

Or run this command from the (*nix) shell of your choice:

git config --global alias.ignore '!sh -c "echo $1 >> .gitignore" -'

You can likewise create a git exclude command by replacing ignore with exclude and .gitignore with .git/info/exclude in the above.

(If you don't already understand the difference between these two files having read the answers here, see this question.)

I hope it's not too late.

If you are on Windows you can just do the following to create a .gitignore file

echo name_of_the_file_you_want_to_ignore.extension > .gitignore

In order to edit .gitignore you can run

notepad .gitignore

A very useful git ignore command comes with the awesome tj/git-extras.

Here are a few usage examples:

List all currently ignored patterns

git ignore

Add a pattern

git ignore "*.log"

Add one of the templates from gitignore.io

git ignore-io -a rails

git-extras provides many more useful commands. Definitely worth trying out.

for names not present in the working copy or repo:

echo /globpattern >> .gitignore

or for an existing file (sh type command line):

echo /$(ls -1 file) >> .gitignore   # I use tab completion to select the file to be ignored  
git rm -r --cached file             # if already checked in, deletes it on next commit