[PATCH] Document escaping of special characters in gitignore files

From: Jakub Narebski <jnareb@gmail.com>
Date: Jan 5, 2011, 13:38 UTC
Message-ID: <1294234732-20094-1-git-send-email-jnareb@gmail.com>

You can use backslash to escape special characters, like '#' or '*', in gitignore files.

Requested-by: Bruce Korb <bruce.korb@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Jakub Narebski <jnareb@gmail.com>
---
This patch was originally send 10 Sep 2010, but I guess it was lost
because it appeared only deep in thread inside response, and not as
well separated patch.  I have found about it when I got conflict
merging current code.

It applies on top of current 'master'.

 Documentation/gitignore.txt |    7 +++++++
 templates/info--exclude     |    1 +
 2 files changed, 8 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)

diff --git a/Documentation/gitignore.txt b/Documentation/gitignore.txt
index 7dc2e8b..20abc20 100644
--- a/Documentation/gitignore.txt
+++ b/Documentation/gitignore.txt
@@ -68,6 +68,7 @@ Patterns have the following format:
    for readability.
 
  - A line starting with # serves as a comment.
+   Use `\#` for a literal # character starting filename.
 
  - An optional prefix '!' which negates the pattern; any
    matching file excluded by a previous pattern will become
@@ -98,6 +99,12 @@ Patterns have the following format:
    For example, "/{asterisk}.c" matches "cat-file.c" but not
    "mozilla-sha1/sha1.c".
 
+ - You can escape special characters using backslash.
+   For example, "{backslash}#*" matches files beginning in `#`
+   (otherwise it would be considered comment),
+   and "{backslash}!*{backslash}?" matches files starting with `!`
+   (negate pattern prefix) and ending with `?` (glob wildcard).
+
 NOTES
 -----
 
diff --git a/templates/info--exclude b/templates/info--exclude
index a5196d1..2ebaf0d 100644
--- a/templates/info--exclude
+++ b/templates/info--exclude
@@ -4,3 +4,4 @@
 # exclude patterns (uncomment them if you want to use them):
 # *.[oa]
 # *~
+# \#*#

-- 
1.7.3