-----------
A `gitignore` file specifies intentionally untracked files that
-git should ignore. Each line in a `gitignore` file specifies a
-pattern.
-
+git should ignore.
+Note that all the `gitignore` files really concern only files
+that are not already tracked by git;
+in order to ignore uncommitted changes in already tracked files,
+please refer to the 'git update-index --assume-unchanged'
+documentation.
+
+Each line in a `gitignore` file specifies a pattern.
When deciding whether to ignore a path, git normally checks
`gitignore` patterns from multiple sources, with the following
order of precedence, from highest to lowest (within one level of
* Patterns read from a `.gitignore` file in the same directory
as the path, or in any parent directory, with patterns in the
- higher level files (up to the root) being overridden by those in
- lower level files down to the directory containing the file.
+ higher level files (up to the toplevel of the work tree) being overridden
+ by those in lower level files down to the directory containing the file.
These patterns match relative to the location of the
`.gitignore` file. A project normally includes such
`.gitignore` files in its repository, containing patterns for
`core.excludesfile` in the user's `~/.gitconfig`.
The underlying git plumbing tools, such as
-linkgit:git-ls-files[1] and linkgit:git-read-tree[1], read
+'git-ls-files' and 'git-read-tree', read
`gitignore` patterns specified by command-line options, or from
files specified by command-line options. Higher-level git
-tools, such as linkgit:git-status[1] and linkgit:git-add[1],
+tools, such as 'git-status' and 'git-add',
use patterns from the sources specified above.
Patterns have the following format:
An example:
--------------------------------------------------------------
- $ git-status
+ $ git status
[...]
# Untracked files:
[...]
*.html
# except foo.html which is maintained by hand
!foo.html
- $ git-status
+ $ git status
[...]
# Untracked files:
[...]