From 6f6d1f41da7271c04923202dda5ece21a543c927 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Junio C Hamano Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2016 15:27:27 -0800 Subject: [PATCH] gitignore: document that unignoring a directory unignores everything in it Also document another limitation coming from a bug in handling the basename match with a directory for 're-inclusion'. Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano --- Documentation/gitignore.txt | 38 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++- 1 file changed, 37 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/Documentation/gitignore.txt b/Documentation/gitignore.txt index 3ded6fdc9..91d1ce2a8 100644 --- a/Documentation/gitignore.txt +++ b/Documentation/gitignore.txt @@ -148,7 +148,43 @@ excluded, the following conditions must be met: be in the same .gitignore file. - The directory part in the re-include rules must be literal (i.e. no - wildcards) + 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 --------