-The list of <file> given to the command is fed to `git-ls-files`
-command to list files that are registered in the index and
-are not ignored/excluded by `$GIT_DIR/info/exclude` file or
-`.gitignore` file in each directory. This means two things:
-
-. You can put the name of a directory on the command line, and the
- command will remove all files in it and its subdirectories (the
- directories themselves are never removed from the working tree);
-
-. Giving the name of a file that is not in the index does not
- remove that file.
+The list of <file> given to the command can be exact pathnames,
+file glob patterns, or leading directory name. The command
+removes only the paths that is known to git. Giving the name of
+a file that you have not told git about does not remove that file.