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1gitignore(5)
2============
3
4NAME
5----
6gitignore - Specifies intentionally untracked files to ignore
7
8SYNOPSIS
9--------
10$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/git/ignore, $GIT_DIR/info/exclude, .gitignore
11
12DESCRIPTION
13-----------
14
15A `gitignore` file specifies intentionally untracked files that
16Git should ignore.
17Files already tracked by Git are not affected; see the NOTES
18below for details.
19
20Each line in a `gitignore` file specifies a pattern.
21When deciding whether to ignore a path, Git normally checks
22`gitignore` patterns from multiple sources, with the following
23order of precedence, from highest to lowest (within one level of
24precedence, the last matching pattern decides the outcome):
25
26 * Patterns read from the command line for those commands that support
27 them.
28
29 * Patterns read from a `.gitignore` file in the same directory
30 as the path, or in any parent directory (up to the top-level of the working
31 tree), with patterns in the higher level files being overridden by those in
32 lower level files down to the directory containing the file. These patterns
33 match relative to the location of the `.gitignore` file. A project normally
34 includes such `.gitignore` files in its repository, containing patterns for
35 files generated as part of the project build.
36
37 * Patterns read from `$GIT_DIR/info/exclude`.
38
39 * Patterns read from the file specified by the configuration
40 variable `core.excludesFile`.
41
42Which file to place a pattern in depends on how the pattern is meant to
43be used.
44
45 * Patterns which should be version-controlled and distributed to
46 other repositories via clone (i.e., files that all developers will want
47 to ignore) should go into a `.gitignore` file.
48
49 * Patterns which are
50 specific to a particular repository but which do not need to be shared
51 with other related repositories (e.g., auxiliary files that live inside
52 the repository but are specific to one user's workflow) should go into
53 the `$GIT_DIR/info/exclude` file.
54
55 * Patterns which a user wants Git to
56 ignore in all situations (e.g., backup or temporary files generated by
57 the user's editor of choice) generally go into a file specified by
58 `core.excludesFile` in the user's `~/.gitconfig`. Its default value is
59 $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/git/ignore. If $XDG_CONFIG_HOME is either not set or
60 empty, $HOME/.config/git/ignore is used instead.
61
62The underlying Git plumbing tools, such as
63'git ls-files' and 'git read-tree', read
64`gitignore` patterns specified by command-line options, or from
65files specified by command-line options. Higher-level Git
66tools, such as 'git status' and 'git add',
67use patterns from the sources specified above.
68
69PATTERN FORMAT
70--------------
71
72 - A blank line matches no files, so it can serve as a separator
73 for readability.
74
75 - A line starting with # serves as a comment.
76 Put a backslash ("`\`") in front of the first hash for patterns
77 that begin with a hash.
78
79 - Trailing spaces are ignored unless they are quoted with backslash
80 ("`\`").
81
82 - An optional prefix "`!`" which negates the pattern; any
83 matching file excluded by a previous pattern will become
84 included again. It is not possible to re-include a file if a parent
85 directory of that file is excluded. Git doesn't list excluded
86 directories for performance reasons, so any patterns on contained
87 files have no effect, no matter where they are defined.
88 Put a backslash ("`\`") in front of the first "`!`" for patterns
89 that begin with a literal "`!`", for example, "`\!important!.txt`".
90
91 - The slash "`/`" is used as the directory separator. Separators may
92 occur at the beginning, middle or end of the `.gitignore` search pattern.
93
94 - If there is a separator at the beginning or middle (or both) of the
95 pattern, then the pattern is relative to the directory level of the
96 particular `.gitignore` file itself. Otherwise the pattern may also
97 match at any level below the `.gitignore` level.
98
99 - If there is a separator at the end of the pattern then the pattern
100 will only match directories, otherwise the pattern can match both
101 files and directories.
102
103 - For example, a pattern `doc/frotz/` matches `doc/frotz` directory,
104 but not `a/doc/frotz` directory; however `frotz/` matches `frotz`
105 and `a/frotz` that is a directory (all paths are relative from
106 the `.gitignore` file).
107
108 - An asterisk "`*`" matches anything except a slash.
109 The character "`?`" matches any one character except "`/`".
110 The range notation, e.g. `[a-zA-Z]`, can be used to match
111 one of the characters in a range. See fnmatch(3) and the
112 FNM_PATHNAME flag for a more detailed description.
113
114Two consecutive asterisks ("`**`") in patterns matched against
115full pathname may have special meaning:
116
117 - A leading "`**`" followed by a slash means match in all
118 directories. For example, "`**/foo`" matches file or directory
119 "`foo`" anywhere, the same as pattern "`foo`". "`**/foo/bar`"
120 matches file or directory "`bar`" anywhere that is directly
121 under directory "`foo`".
122
123 - A trailing "`/**`" matches everything inside. For example,
124 "`abc/**`" matches all files inside directory "`abc`", relative
125 to the location of the `.gitignore` file, with infinite depth.
126
127 - A slash followed by two consecutive asterisks then a slash
128 matches zero or more directories. For example, "`a/**/b`"
129 matches "`a/b`", "`a/x/b`", "`a/x/y/b`" and so on.
130
131 - Other consecutive asterisks are considered regular asterisks and
132 will match according to the previous rules.
133
134CONFIGURATION
135-------------
136
137The optional configuration variable `core.excludesFile` indicates a path to a
138file containing patterns of file names to exclude, similar to
139`$GIT_DIR/info/exclude`. Patterns in the exclude file are used in addition to
140those in `$GIT_DIR/info/exclude`.
141
142NOTES
143-----
144
145The purpose of gitignore files is to ensure that certain files
146not tracked by Git remain untracked.
147
148To stop tracking a file that is currently tracked, use
149'git rm --cached' to remove the file from the index. The filename
150can then be added to the `.gitignore` file to stop the file from
151being reintroduced in later commits.
152
153Git does not follow symbolic links when accessing a `.gitignore` file in
154the working tree. This keeps behavior consistent when the file is
155accessed from the index or a tree versus from the filesystem.
156
157EXAMPLES
158--------
159
160 - The pattern `hello.*` matches any file or directory
161 whose name begins with `hello.`. If one wants to restrict
162 this only to the directory and not in its subdirectories,
163 one can prepend the pattern with a slash, i.e. `/hello.*`;
164 the pattern now matches `hello.txt`, `hello.c` but not
165 `a/hello.java`.
166
167 - The pattern `foo/` will match a directory `foo` and
168 paths underneath it, but will not match a regular file
169 or a symbolic link `foo` (this is consistent with the
170 way how pathspec works in general in Git)
171
172 - The pattern `doc/frotz` and `/doc/frotz` have the same effect
173 in any `.gitignore` file. In other words, a leading slash
174 is not relevant if there is already a middle slash in
175 the pattern.
176
177 - The pattern `foo/*`, matches `foo/test.json`
178 (a regular file), `foo/bar` (a directory), but it does not match
179 `foo/bar/hello.c` (a regular file), as the asterisk in the
180 pattern does not match `bar/hello.c` which has a slash in it.
181
182--------------------------------------------------------------
183 $ git status
184 [...]
185 # Untracked files:
186 [...]
187 # Documentation/foo.html
188 # Documentation/gitignore.html
189 # file.o
190 # lib.a
191 # src/internal.o
192 [...]
193 $ cat .git/info/exclude
194 # ignore objects and archives, anywhere in the tree.
195 *.[oa]
196 $ cat Documentation/.gitignore
197 # ignore generated html files,
198 *.html
199 # except foo.html which is maintained by hand
200 !foo.html
201 $ git status
202 [...]
203 # Untracked files:
204 [...]
205 # Documentation/foo.html
206 [...]
207--------------------------------------------------------------
208
209Another example:
210
211--------------------------------------------------------------
212 $ cat .gitignore
213 vmlinux*
214 $ ls arch/foo/kernel/vm*
215 arch/foo/kernel/vmlinux.lds.S
216 $ echo '!/vmlinux*' >arch/foo/kernel/.gitignore
217--------------------------------------------------------------
218
219The second .gitignore prevents Git from ignoring
220`arch/foo/kernel/vmlinux.lds.S`.
221
222Example to exclude everything except a specific directory `foo/bar`
223(note the `/*` - without the slash, the wildcard would also exclude
224everything within `foo/bar`):
225
226--------------------------------------------------------------
227 $ cat .gitignore
228 # exclude everything except directory foo/bar
229 /*
230 !/foo
231 /foo/*
232 !/foo/bar
233--------------------------------------------------------------
234
235SEE ALSO
236--------
237linkgit:git-rm[1],
238linkgit:gitrepository-layout[5],
239linkgit:git-check-ignore[1]
240
241GIT
242---
243Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite