git-check-ignore(1)
===================

NAME
----
git-check-ignore - Debug gitignore / exclude files


SYNOPSIS
--------
[verse]
'git check-ignore' [options] pathname...
'git check-ignore' [options] --stdin

DESCRIPTION
-----------

For each pathname given via the command-line or from a file via
`--stdin`, show the pattern from .gitignore (or other input files to
the exclude mechanism) that decides if the pathname is excluded or
included.  Later patterns within a file take precedence over earlier
ones.

By default, tracked files are not shown at all since they are not
subject to exclude rules; but see `--no-index'.

OPTIONS
-------
-q, --quiet::
        Don't output anything, just set exit status.  This is only
        valid with a single pathname.

-v, --verbose::
        Also output details about the matching pattern (if any)
        for each given pathname.

--stdin::
        Read pathnames from the standard input, one per line,
        instead of from the command-line.

-z::
        The output format is modified to be machine-parseable (see
        below).  If `--stdin` is also given, input paths are separated
        with a NUL character instead of a linefeed character.

-n, --non-matching::
        Show given paths which don't match any pattern.  This only
        makes sense when `--verbose` is enabled, otherwise it would
        not be possible to distinguish between paths which match a
        pattern and those which don't.

--no-index::
        Don't look in the index when undertaking the checks. This can
        be used to debug why a path became tracked by e.g. `git add .`
        and was not ignored by the rules as expected by the user or when
        developing patterns including negation to match a path previously
        added with `git add -f`.

OUTPUT
------

By default, any of the given pathnames which match an ignore pattern
will be output, one per line.  If no pattern matches a given path,
nothing will be output for that path; this means that path will not be
ignored.

If `--verbose` is specified, the output is a series of lines of the form:

<source> <COLON> <linenum> <COLON> <pattern> <HT> <pathname>

<pathname> is the path of a file being queried, <pattern> is the
matching pattern, <source> is the pattern's source file, and <linenum>
is the line number of the pattern within that source.  If the pattern
contained a `!` prefix or `/` suffix, it will be preserved in the
output.  <source> will be an absolute path when referring to the file
configured by `core.excludesFile`, or relative to the repository root
when referring to `.git/info/exclude` or a per-directory exclude file.

If `-z` is specified, the pathnames in the output are delimited by the
null character; if `--verbose` is also specified then null characters
are also used instead of colons and hard tabs:

<source> <NULL> <linenum> <NULL> <pattern> <NULL> <pathname> <NULL>

If `-n` or `--non-matching` are specified, non-matching pathnames will
also be output, in which case all fields in each output record except
for <pathname> will be empty.  This can be useful when running
non-interactively, so that files can be incrementally streamed to
STDIN of a long-running check-ignore process, and for each of these
files, STDOUT will indicate whether that file matched a pattern or
not.  (Without this option, it would be impossible to tell whether the
absence of output for a given file meant that it didn't match any
pattern, or that the output hadn't been generated yet.)

Buffering happens as documented under the `GIT_FLUSH` option in
linkgit:git[1].  The caller is responsible for avoiding deadlocks
caused by overfilling an input buffer or reading from an empty output
buffer.

EXIT STATUS
-----------

0::
        One or more of the provided paths is ignored.

1::
        None of the provided paths are ignored.

128::
        A fatal error was encountered.

SEE ALSO
--------
linkgit:gitignore[5]
linkgit:gitconfig[5]
linkgit:git-ls-files[1]

GIT
---
Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite