- An optional prefix "`!`" which negates the pattern; any
matching file excluded by a previous pattern will become
- included again. It is not possible to re-include a file if a parent
- directory of that file is excluded. Git doesn't list excluded
- directories for performance reasons, so any patterns on contained
- files have no effect, no matter where they are defined.
+ included again.
Put a backslash ("`\`") in front of the first "`!`" for patterns
that begin with a literal "`!`", for example, "`\!important!.txt`".
+ It is possible to re-include a file if a parent directory of that
+ file is excluded if certain conditions are met. See section NOTES
+ for detail.
- If the pattern ends with a slash, it is removed for the
purpose of the following description, but it would only find
To stop tracking a file that is currently tracked, use
'git rm --cached'.
+To re-include files or directories when their parent directory is
+excluded, the following conditions must be met:
+
+ - The rules to exclude a directory and re-include a subset back must
+ be in the same .gitignore file.
+
+ - The directory part in the re-include rules must be literal (i.e. no
+ wildcards and has to start with a `/`).
+
+A re-inclusion of a directory makes all files in the directory
+unignored. For example, suppose you have files `.gitignore`,
+`dir/file1`, `dir/file2`, and `dir/file3`, and have the following in
+your `.gitignore`:
+
+----------------
+# .gitignore is not mentioned in .gitignore
+*
+!/dir
+# dir/file1 is not mentioned in .gitignore
+dir/file2
+!dir/file3
+----------------
+
+Then:
+
+ - `.gitignore` gets ignored, because it matches the `*` at the top
+ level;
+
+ - `dir/file1` does not get ignored, because `/dir` marks everything
+ underneath `dir/` directory to be 're-included' unless otherwise
+ specified;
+
+ - `dir/file2` gets ignored, because `dir/file2` matches it.
+
+ - `dir/file3` does not get ignored, because `!dir/file3` matches it.
+ Note that the entry `!dir/file3` is redundant because everything
+ underneath `dir/` is marked to be 're-included' already.
+
+Some earlier versions of Git treated `!/dir` above differently in
+that it did not cause the paths under it unignored (but merely told
+Git that patterns that begin with dir/ should not be ignored), but
+this has been corrected to be consistent with `/dir` that says "the
+directory `dir/` and everything below are ignored."
+
+
EXAMPLES
--------