GITIGNORE(5) Git Manual GITIGNORE(5)
NAME
gitignore - Specifies intentionally untracked files to ignore
SYNOPSIS
$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/git/ignore, $GIT_DIR/info/exclude, .gitignore
DESCRIPTION
A gitignore file specifies intentionally untracked files that Git
should ignore. Files already tracked by Git are not affected; see the
NOTES below for details.
Each line in a gitignore file specifies a pattern. When deciding
whether to ignore a path, Git normally checks gitignore patterns from
multiple sources, with the following order of precedence, from highest
to lowest (within one level of precedence, the last matching pattern
decides the outcome):
o Patterns read from the command line for those commands that support
them.
o Patterns read from a .gitignore file in the same directory as the
path, or in any parent directory, with patterns in the higher level
files (up to the toplevel of the work tree) being overridden by
those in lower level files down to the directory containing the
file. These patterns match relative to the location of the
.gitignore file. A project normally includes such .gitignore files
in its repository, containing patterns for files generated as part
of the project build.
o Patterns read from $GIT_DIR/info/exclude.
o Patterns read from the file specified by the configuration variable
core.excludesFile.
Which file to place a pattern in depends on how the pattern is meant to
be used.
o Patterns which should be version-controlled and distributed to
other repositories via clone (i.e., files that all developers will
want to ignore) should go into a .gitignore file.
o Patterns which are specific to a particular repository but which do
not need to be shared with other related repositories (e.g.,
auxiliary files that live inside the repository but are specific to
one user's workflow) should go into the $GIT_DIR/info/exclude file.
o Patterns which a user wants Git to ignore in all situations (e.g.,
backup or temporary files generated by the user's editor of choice)
generally go into a file specified by core.excludesFile in the
user's ~/.gitconfig. Its default value is
$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/git/ignore. If $XDG_CONFIG_HOME is either not set
or empty, $HOME/.config/git/ignore is used instead.
The underlying Git plumbing tools, such as git ls-files and git
read-tree, read gitignore patterns specified by command-line options,
or from files specified by command-line options. Higher-level Git
tools, such as git status and git add, use patterns from the sources
specified above.
PATTERN FORMAT
o A blank line matches no files, so it can serve as a separator for
readability.
o A line starting with # serves as a comment. Put a backslash ("\")
in front of the first hash for patterns that begin with a hash.
o Trailing spaces are ignored unless they are quoted with backslash
("\").
o An optional prefix "!" which negates the pattern; any matching file
excluded by a previous pattern will become included again. It is
not possible to re-include a file if a parent directory of that
file is excluded. Git doesn't list excluded directories for
performance reasons, so any patterns on contained files have no
effect, no matter where they are defined. Put a backslash ("\") in
front of the first "!" for patterns that begin with a literal "!",
for example, "\!important!.txt".
o The slash / is used as the directory separator. Separators may
occur at the beginning, middle or end of the .gitignore search
pattern.
o If there is a separator at the beginning or middle (or both) of the
pattern, then the pattern is relative to the directory level of the
particular .gitignore file itself. Otherwise the pattern may also
match at any level below the .gitignore level.
o If there is a separator at the end of the pattern then the pattern
will only match directories, otherwise the pattern can match both
files and directories.
o For example, a pattern doc/frotz/ matches doc/frotz directory, but
not a/doc/frotz directory; however frotz/ matches frotz and a/frotz
that is a directory (all paths are relative from the .gitignore
file).
o An asterisk "*" matches anything except a slash. The character "?"
matches any one character except "/". The range notation, e.g.
[a-zA-Z], can be used to match one of the characters in a range.
See fnmatch(3) and the FNM_PATHNAME flag for a more detailed
description.
Two consecutive asterisks ("**") in patterns matched against full
pathname may have special meaning:
o A leading "**" followed by a slash means match in all directories.
For example, "**/foo" matches file or directory "foo" anywhere, the
same as pattern "foo". "**/foo/bar" matches file or directory "bar"
anywhere that is directly under directory "foo".
o A trailing "/**" matches everything inside. For example, "abc/**"
matches all files inside directory "abc", relative to the location
of the .gitignore file, with infinite depth.
o A slash followed by two consecutive asterisks then a slash matches
zero or more directories. For example, "a/**/b" matches "a/b",
"a/x/b", "a/x/y/b" and so on.
o Other consecutive asterisks are considered regular asterisks and
will match according to the previous rules.
CONFIGURATION
The optional configuration variable core.excludesFile indicates a path
to a file containing patterns of file names to exclude, similar to
$GIT_DIR/info/exclude. Patterns in the exclude file are used in
addition to those in $GIT_DIR/info/exclude.
NOTES
The purpose of gitignore files is to ensure that certain files not
tracked by Git remain untracked.
To stop tracking a file that is currently tracked, use git rm --cached.
EXAMPLES
o The pattern hello.* matches any file or folder whose name begins
with hello. If one wants to restrict this only to the directory and
not in its subdirectories, one can prepend the pattern with a
slash, i.e. /hello.*; the pattern now matches hello.txt, hello.c
but not a/hello.java.
o The pattern 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)
o The pattern doc/frotz and /doc/frotz have the same effect in any
.gitignore file. In other words, a leading slash is not relevant if
there is already a middle slash in the pattern.
o The pattern "foo/*", matches "foo/test.json" (a regular file),
"foo/bar" (a directory), but it does not match "foo/bar/hello.c" (a
regular file), as the asterisk in the pattern does not match
"bar/hello.c" which has a slash in it.
$ git status
[...]
# Untracked files:
[...]
# Documentation/foo.html
# Documentation/gitignore.html
# file.o
# lib.a
# src/internal.o
[...]
$ cat .git/info/exclude
# ignore objects and archives, anywhere in the tree.
*.[oa]
$ cat Documentation/.gitignore
# ignore generated html files,
*.html
# except foo.html which is maintained by hand
!foo.html
$ git status
[...]
# Untracked files:
[...]
# Documentation/foo.html
[...]
Another example:
$ cat .gitignore
vmlinux*
$ ls arch/foo/kernel/vm*
arch/foo/kernel/vmlinux.lds.S
$ echo '!/vmlinux*' >arch/foo/kernel/.gitignore
The second .gitignore prevents Git from ignoring
arch/foo/kernel/vmlinux.lds.S.
Example to exclude everything except a specific directory foo/bar (note
the /* - without the slash, the wildcard would also exclude everything
within foo/bar):
$ cat .gitignore
# exclude everything except directory foo/bar
/*
!/foo
/foo/*
!/foo/bar
SEE ALSO
git-rm(1), gitrepository-layout(5), git-check-ignore(1)
GIT
Part of the git(1) suite
Git 2.27.0 06/01/2020 GITIGNORE(5)