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 - An optional prefix "`!`" which negates the pattern; any 81 matching file excluded by a previous pattern will become 82 included again. It is not possible to re-include a file if a parent 83 directory of that file is excluded. Git doesn't list excluded 84 directories for performance reasons, so any patterns on contained 85 files have no effect, no matter where they are defined. 86 Put a backslash ("`\`") in front of the first "`!`" for patterns 87 that begin with a literal "`!`", for example, "`\!important!.txt`". 88 89 - If the pattern ends with a slash, it is removed for the 90 purpose of the following description, but it would only find 91 a match with a directory. In other words, `foo/` will match a 92 directory `foo` and paths underneath it, but will not match a 93 regular file or a symbolic link `foo` (this is consistent 94 with the way how pathspec works in general in Git). 95 96 - If the pattern does not contain a slash '/', Git treats it as 97 a shell glob pattern and checks for a match against the 98 pathname relative to the location of the `.gitignore` file 99 (relative to the toplevel of the work tree if not from a 100 `.gitignore` file). 101 102 - Otherwise, Git treats the pattern as a shell glob suitable 103 for consumption by fnmatch(3) with the FNM_PATHNAME flag: 104 wildcards in the pattern will not match a / in the pathname. 105 For example, "Documentation/{asterisk}.html" matches 106 "Documentation/git.html" but not "Documentation/ppc/ppc.html" 107 or "tools/perf/Documentation/perf.html". 108 109 - A leading slash matches the beginning of the pathname. 110 For example, "/{asterisk}.c" matches "cat-file.c" but not 111 "mozilla-sha1/sha1.c". 112 113Two consecutive asterisks ("`**`") in patterns matched against 114full pathname may have special meaning: 115 116 - A leading "`**`" followed by a slash means match in all 117 directories. For example, "`**/foo`" matches file or directory 118 "`foo`" anywhere, the same as pattern "`foo`". "`**/foo/bar`" 119 matches file or directory "`bar`" anywhere that is directly 120 under directory "`foo`". 121 122 - A trailing "`/**`" matches everything inside. For example, 123 "`abc/**`" matches all files inside directory "`abc`", relative 124 to the location of the `.gitignore` file, with infinite depth. 125 126 - A slash followed by two consecutive asterisks then a slash 127 matches zero or more directories. For example, "`a/**/b`" 128 matches "`a/b`", "`a/x/b`", "`a/x/y/b`" and so on. 129 130 - Other consecutive asterisks are considered invalid. 131 132NOTES 133----- 134 135The purpose of gitignore files is to ensure that certain files 136not tracked by Git remain untracked. 137 138To ignore uncommitted changes in a file that is already tracked, 139use 'git update-index {litdd}assume-unchanged'. 140 141To stop tracking a file that is currently tracked, use 142'git rm --cached'. 143 144EXAMPLES 145-------- 146 147-------------------------------------------------------------- 148 $ git status 149 [...] 150 # Untracked files: 151 [...] 152 # Documentation/foo.html 153 # Documentation/gitignore.html 154 # file.o 155 # lib.a 156 # src/internal.o 157 [...] 158 $ cat .git/info/exclude 159 # ignore objects and archives, anywhere in the tree. 160 *.[oa] 161 $ cat Documentation/.gitignore 162 # ignore generated html files, 163 *.html 164 # except foo.html which is maintained by hand 165 !foo.html 166 $ git status 167 [...] 168 # Untracked files: 169 [...] 170 # Documentation/foo.html 171 [...] 172-------------------------------------------------------------- 173 174Another example: 175 176-------------------------------------------------------------- 177 $ cat .gitignore 178 vmlinux* 179 $ ls arch/foo/kernel/vm* 180 arch/foo/kernel/vmlinux.lds.S 181 $ echo '!/vmlinux*' >arch/foo/kernel/.gitignore 182-------------------------------------------------------------- 183 184The second .gitignore prevents Git from ignoring 185`arch/foo/kernel/vmlinux.lds.S`. 186 187Example to exclude everything except a specific directory `foo/bar` 188(note the `/*` - without the slash, the wildcard would also exclude 189everything within `foo/bar`): 190 191-------------------------------------------------------------- 192 $ cat .gitignore 193 # exclude everything except directory foo/bar 194 /* 195 !/foo 196 /foo/* 197 !/foo/bar 198-------------------------------------------------------------- 199 200SEE ALSO 201-------- 202linkgit:git-rm[1], 203linkgit:git-update-index[1], 204linkgit:gitrepository-layout[5], 205linkgit:git-check-ignore[1] 206 207GIT 208--- 209Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite