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GITIGNORE(5)                      Git Manual                      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.
       o   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.
       o   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's workflow) should go into the $GIT_DIR/info/exclude file.
       o   Patterns which a user wants Git to ignore in all situations (e.g.,
           backup or temporary files generated by the user's editor of choice)
           generally go into a file specified by core.excludesfile in the
           user's ~/.gitconfig. Its default value is
           $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/git/ignore. If $XDG_CONFIG_HOME is either not set
           or empty, $HOME/.config/git/ignore is used instead.
       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. Put a backslash ("\")
           in front of the first hash for patterns that begin with a hash.
       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. Put a backslash ("\") in front of the first "!"
           for patterns that begin with a literal "!", for example,
           "\!important!.txt".
       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".
       Two consecutive asterisks ("**") in patterns matched against full
       pathname may have special meaning:
       o   A leading "**" followed by a slash means match in all directories.
           For example, "**/foo" matches file or directory "foo" anywhere, the
           same as pattern "foo". "**/foo/bar" matches file or directory "bar"
           anywhere that is directly under directory "foo".
       o   A trailing "/" matches everything inside. For example, "abc/"
           matches all files inside directory "abc", relative to the location
           of the .gitignore file, with infinite depth.
       o   A slash followed by two consecutive asterisks then a slash matches
           zero or more directories. For example, "a/**/b" matches "a/b",
           "a/x/b", "a/x/y/b" and so on.
       o   Other consecutive asterisks are considered invalid.
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-check-
       ignore(1)
GIT
       Part of the git(1) suite

Git 1.8.3.1                       07/30/2024                      GITIGNORE(5)