1gitignore(5) 2============ 3 4NAME 5---- 6gitignore - Specifies intentionally untracked files to ignore 7 8SYNOPSIS 9-------- 10$HOME/.config/git/ignore, $GIT_DIR/info/exclude, .gitignore 11 12DESCRIPTION 13----------- 14 15A `gitignore` file specifies intentionally untracked files that 16Git should ignore. 17Files already tracked by Git are not affected; see the NOTES 18below for details. 19 20Each line in a `gitignore` file specifies a pattern. 21When deciding whether to ignore a path, Git normally checks 22`gitignore` patterns from multiple sources, with the following 23order of precedence, from highest to lowest (within one level of 24precedence, the last matching pattern decides the outcome): 25 26 * Patterns read from the command line for those commands that support 27 them. 28 29 * Patterns read from a `.gitignore` file in the same directory 30 as the path, or in any parent directory, with patterns in the 31 higher level files (up to the toplevel of the work tree) being overridden 32 by those in lower level files down to the directory containing the file. 33 These patterns match relative to the location of the 34 `.gitignore` file. A project normally includes such 35 `.gitignore` files in its repository, containing patterns for 36 files generated as part of the project build. 37 38 * Patterns read from `$GIT_DIR/info/exclude`. 39 40 * Patterns read from the file specified by the configuration 41 variable 'core.excludesFile'. 42 43Which file to place a pattern in depends on how the pattern is meant to 44be used. 45 46 * Patterns which should be version-controlled and distributed to 47 other repositories via clone (i.e., files that all developers will want 48 to ignore) should go into a `.gitignore` file. 49 50 * Patterns which are 51 specific to a particular repository but which do not need to be shared 52 with other related repositories (e.g., auxiliary files that live inside 53 the repository but are specific to one user's workflow) should go into 54 the `$GIT_DIR/info/exclude` file. 55 56 * Patterns which a user wants Git to 57 ignore in all situations (e.g., backup or temporary files generated by 58 the user's editor of choice) generally go into a file specified by 59 `core.excludesFile` in the user's `~/.gitconfig`. Its default value is 60 $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/git/ignore. If $XDG_CONFIG_HOME is either not set or 61 empty, $HOME/.config/git/ignore is used instead. 62 63The underlying Git plumbing tools, such as 64'git ls-files' and 'git read-tree', read 65`gitignore` patterns specified by command-line options, or from 66files specified by command-line options. Higher-level Git 67tools, such as 'git status' and 'git add', 68use patterns from the sources specified above. 69 70PATTERN FORMAT 71-------------- 72 73 - A blank line matches no files, so it can serve as a separator 74 for readability. 75 76 - A line starting with # serves as a comment. 77 Put a backslash ("`\`") in front of the first hash for patterns 78 that begin with a hash. 79 80 - Trailing spaces are ignored unless they are quoted with backslash 81 ("`\`"). 82 83 - An optional prefix "`!`" which negates the pattern; any 84 matching file excluded by a previous pattern will become 85 included again. 86 Put a backslash ("`\`") in front of the first "`!`" for patterns 87 that begin with a literal "`!`", for example, "`\!important!.txt`". 88 It is possible to re-include a file if a parent directory of that 89 file is excluded if certain conditions are met. See section NOTES 90 for detail. 91 92 - If the pattern ends with a slash, it is removed for the 93 purpose of the following description, but it would only find 94 a match with a directory. In other words, `foo/` will match a 95 directory `foo` and paths underneath it, but will not match a 96 regular file or a symbolic link `foo` (this is consistent 97 with the way how pathspec works in general in Git). 98 99 - If the pattern does not contain a slash '/', Git treats it as 100 a shell glob pattern and checks for a match against the 101 pathname relative to the location of the `.gitignore` file 102 (relative to the toplevel of the work tree if not from a 103 `.gitignore` file). 104 105 - Otherwise, Git treats the pattern as a shell glob suitable 106 for consumption by fnmatch(3) with the FNM_PATHNAME flag: 107 wildcards in the pattern will not match a / in the pathname. 108 For example, "Documentation/{asterisk}.html" matches 109 "Documentation/git.html" but not "Documentation/ppc/ppc.html" 110 or "tools/perf/Documentation/perf.html". 111 112 - A leading slash matches the beginning of the pathname. 113 For example, "/{asterisk}.c" matches "cat-file.c" but not 114 "mozilla-sha1/sha1.c". 115 116Two consecutive asterisks ("`**`") in patterns matched against 117full pathname may have special meaning: 118 119 - A leading "`**`" followed by a slash means match in all 120 directories. For example, "`**/foo`" matches file or directory 121 "`foo`" anywhere, the same as pattern "`foo`". "`**/foo/bar`" 122 matches file or directory "`bar`" anywhere that is directly 123 under directory "`foo`". 124 125 - A trailing "`/**`" matches everything inside. For example, 126 "`abc/**`" matches all files inside directory "`abc`", relative 127 to the location of the `.gitignore` file, with infinite depth. 128 129 - A slash followed by two consecutive asterisks then a slash 130 matches zero or more directories. For example, "`a/**/b`" 131 matches "`a/b`", "`a/x/b`", "`a/x/y/b`" and so on. 132 133 - Other consecutive asterisks are considered invalid. 134 135NOTES 136----- 137 138The purpose of gitignore files is to ensure that certain files 139not tracked by Git remain untracked. 140 141To stop tracking a file that is currently tracked, use 142'git rm --cached'. 143 144To re-include files or directories when their parent directory is 145excluded, the following conditions must be met: 146 147 - The rules to exclude a directory and re-include a subset back must 148 be in the same .gitignore file. 149 150 - The directory part in the re-include rules must be literal (i.e. no 151 wildcards) 152 153 - The rules to exclude the parent directory must not end with a 154 trailing slash. 155 156 - The rules to exclude the parent directory must have at least one 157 slash. 158 159EXAMPLES 160-------- 161 162-------------------------------------------------------------- 163 $ git status 164 [...] 165 # Untracked files: 166 [...] 167 # Documentation/foo.html 168 # Documentation/gitignore.html 169 # file.o 170 # lib.a 171 # src/internal.o 172 [...] 173 $ cat .git/info/exclude 174 # ignore objects and archives, anywhere in the tree. 175 *.[oa] 176 $ cat Documentation/.gitignore 177 # ignore generated html files, 178 *.html 179 # except foo.html which is maintained by hand 180 !foo.html 181 $ git status 182 [...] 183 # Untracked files: 184 [...] 185 # Documentation/foo.html 186 [...] 187-------------------------------------------------------------- 188 189Another example: 190 191-------------------------------------------------------------- 192 $ cat .gitignore 193 vmlinux* 194 $ ls arch/foo/kernel/vm* 195 arch/foo/kernel/vmlinux.lds.S 196 $ echo '!/vmlinux*' >arch/foo/kernel/.gitignore 197-------------------------------------------------------------- 198 199The second .gitignore prevents Git from ignoring 200`arch/foo/kernel/vmlinux.lds.S`. 201 202Example to exclude everything except a specific directory `foo/bar` 203(note the `/*` - without the slash, the wildcard would also exclude 204everything within `foo/bar`): 205 206-------------------------------------------------------------- 207 $ cat .gitignore 208 # exclude everything except directory foo/bar 209 /* 210 !/foo 211 /foo/* 212 !/foo/bar 213-------------------------------------------------------------- 214 215SEE ALSO 216-------- 217linkgit:git-rm[1], 218linkgit:gitrepository-layout[5], 219linkgit:git-check-ignore[1] 220 221GIT 222--- 223Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite