GITIGNORE(5)                                                      GITIGNORE(5)



NAME
       gitignore - Specifies intentionally untracked files to ignore

SYNOPSIS
       $GIT_DIR/info/exclude, .gitignore


DESCRIPTION
       A gitignore file specifies intentionally untracked files that git
       should ignore. Files already tracked by git are not affected; see the
       NOTES below for details.


       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 precedence, the last matching pattern
       decides the outcome):


       o  Patterns read from the command line for those commands that support
          them.

       o  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 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 files generated as part
          of the project build.

       o  Patterns read from $GIT_DIR/info/exclude.

       o  Patterns read from the file specified by the configuration variable
          core.excludesfile.

       Which file to place a pattern in depends on how the pattern is meant to
       be used. Patterns which should be version-controlled and distributed to
       other repositories via clone (i.e., files that all developers will want
       to ignore) should go into a .gitignore file. Patterns which are
       specific to a particular repository but which do not need to be shared
       with other related repositories (e.g., auxiliary files that live inside
       the repository but are specific to one user&#8217;s workflow) should go
       into the $GIT_DIR/info/exclude file. Patterns which a user wants git to
       ignore in all situations (e.g., backup or temporary files generated by
       the user&#8217;s editor of choice) generally go into a file specified
       by core.excludesfile in the user&#8217;s ~/.gitconfig.


       The underlying git plumbing tools, such as 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 git status and git add, use patterns from the sources
       specified above.


PATTERN FORMAT
       o  A blank line matches no files, so it can serve as a separator for
          readability.

       o  A line starting with # serves as a comment.

       o  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.

       o  If the pattern ends with a slash, it is removed for the purpose of
          the following description, but it would only find a match with a
          directory. In other words, foo/ will match a directory foo and paths
          underneath it, but will not match a regular file or a symbolic link
          foo (this is consistent with the way how pathspec works in general
          in git).

       o  If the pattern does not contain a slash /, git treats it as a shell
          glob pattern and checks for a match against the pathname relative to
          the location of the .gitignore file (relative to the toplevel of the
          work tree if not from a .gitignore file).

       o  Otherwise, git treats the pattern as a shell glob suitable for
          consumption by fnmatch(3) with the FNM_PATHNAME flag: wildcards in
          the pattern will not match a / in the pathname. For example,
          "Documentation/*.html" matches "Documentation/git.html" but not
          "Documentation/ppc/ppc.html" or
          "tools/perf/Documentation/perf.html".

       o  A leading slash matches the beginning of the pathname. For example,
          "/*.c" matches "cat-file.c" but not "mozilla-sha1/sha1.c".

NOTES
       The purpose of gitignore files is to ensure that certain files not
       tracked by git remain untracked.


       To ignore uncommitted changes in a file that is already tracked, use
       git update-index --assume-unchanged.


       To stop tracking a file that is currently tracked, use git rm --cached.


EXAMPLES
           $ git status
           [...]
           # Untracked files:
           [...]
           #       Documentation/foo.html
           #       Documentation/gitignore.html
           #       file.o
           #       lib.a
           #       src/internal.o
           [...]
           $ cat .git/info/exclude
           # ignore objects and archives, anywhere in the tree.
           *.[oa]
           $ cat Documentation/.gitignore
           # ignore generated html files,
           *.html
           # except foo.html which is maintained by hand
           !foo.html
           $ git status
           [...]
           # Untracked files:
           [...]
           #       Documentation/foo.html
           [...]





       Another example:

           $ cat .gitignore
           vmlinux*
           $ ls arch/foo/kernel/vm*
           arch/foo/kernel/vmlinux.lds.S
           $ echo '!/vmlinux*' >arch/foo/kernel/.gitignore





       The second .gitignore prevents git from ignoring
       arch/foo/kernel/vmlinux.lds.S.


SEE ALSO
       git-rm(1), git-update-index(1), gitrepository-layout(5)


GIT
       Part of the git(1) suite




                                                                  GITIGNORE(5)
