1gitignore(5) 2============ 3 4NAME 5---- 6gitignore - Specifies intentionally untracked files to ignore 7 8SYNOPSIS 9-------- 10$GIT_DIR/info/exclude, .gitignore 11 12DESCRIPTION 13----------- 14 15A `gitignore` file specifies intentionally untracked files that 16git should ignore. 17Files already tracked by git are not affected; see the NOTES 18below for details. 19 20Each line in a `gitignore` file specifies a pattern. 21When deciding whether to ignore a path, git normally checks 22`gitignore` patterns from multiple sources, with the following 23order of precedence, from highest to lowest (within one level of 24precedence, the last matching pattern decides the outcome): 25 26 * Patterns read from the command line for those commands that support 27 them. 28 29 * Patterns read from a `.gitignore` file in the same directory 30 as the path, or in any parent directory, with patterns in the 31 higher level files (up to the toplevel of the work tree) being overridden 32 by those in lower level files down to the directory containing the file. 33 These patterns match relative to the location of the 34 `.gitignore` file. A project normally includes such 35 `.gitignore` files in its repository, containing patterns for 36 files generated as part of the project build. 37 38 * Patterns read from `$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 78 - An optional prefix '!' which negates the pattern; any 79 matching file excluded by a previous pattern will become 80 included again. If a negated pattern matches, this will 81 override lower precedence patterns sources. 82 83 - If the pattern ends with a slash, it is removed for the 84 purpose of the following description, but it would only find 85 a match with a directory. In other words, `foo/` will match a 86 directory `foo` and paths underneath it, but will not match a 87 regular file or a symbolic link `foo` (this is consistent 88 with the way how pathspec works in general in git). 89 90 - If the pattern does not contain a slash '/', git treats it as 91 a shell glob pattern and checks for a match against the 92 pathname relative to the location of the `.gitignore` file 93 (relative to the toplevel of the work tree if not from a 94 `.gitignore` file). 95 96 - Otherwise, git treats the pattern as a shell glob suitable 97 for consumption by fnmatch(3) with the FNM_PATHNAME flag: 98 wildcards in the pattern will not match a / in the pathname. 99 For example, "Documentation/{asterisk}.html" matches 100 "Documentation/git.html" but not "Documentation/ppc/ppc.html" 101 or "tools/perf/Documentation/perf.html". 102 103 - A leading slash matches the beginning of the pathname. 104 For example, "/{asterisk}.c" matches "cat-file.c" but not 105 "mozilla-sha1/sha1.c". 106 107NOTES 108----- 109 110The purpose of gitignore files is to ensure that certain files 111not tracked by git remain untracked. 112 113To ignore uncommitted changes in a file that is already tracked, 114use 'git update-index {litdd}assume-unchanged'. 115 116To stop tracking a file that is currently tracked, use 117'git rm --cached'. 118 119EXAMPLES 120-------- 121 122-------------------------------------------------------------- 123 $ git status 124 [...] 125 # Untracked files: 126 [...] 127 # Documentation/foo.html 128 # Documentation/gitignore.html 129 # file.o 130 # lib.a 131 # src/internal.o 132 [...] 133 $ cat .git/info/exclude 134 # ignore objects and archives, anywhere in the tree. 135 *.[oa] 136 $ cat Documentation/.gitignore 137 # ignore generated html files, 138 *.html 139 # except foo.html which is maintained by hand 140 !foo.html 141 $ git status 142 [...] 143 # Untracked files: 144 [...] 145 # Documentation/foo.html 146 [...] 147-------------------------------------------------------------- 148 149Another example: 150 151-------------------------------------------------------------- 152 $ cat .gitignore 153 vmlinux* 154 $ ls arch/foo/kernel/vm* 155 arch/foo/kernel/vmlinux.lds.S 156 $ echo '!/vmlinux*' >arch/foo/kernel/.gitignore 157-------------------------------------------------------------- 158 159The second .gitignore prevents git from ignoring 160`arch/foo/kernel/vmlinux.lds.S`. 161 162SEE ALSO 163-------- 164linkgit:git-rm[1], linkgit:git-update-index[1], 165linkgit:gitrepository-layout[5] 166 167GIT 168--- 169Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite