for readability.
- A line starting with # serves as a comment.
+ Put a backslash ("`\`") in front of the first hash for patterns
+ that begin with a hash.
- - An optional prefix '!' which negates the pattern; any
+ - An optional prefix "`!`" which negates the pattern; any
matching file excluded by a previous pattern will become
included again. If a negated pattern matches, this will
override lower precedence patterns sources.
+ Put a backslash ("`\`") in front of the first "`!`" for patterns
+ that begin with a literal "`!`", for example, "`\!important!.txt`".
- If the pattern ends with a slash, it is removed for the
purpose of the following description, but it would only find