Re: gitignore broken in git 1.7.0.1: slash checks leading dirs

From: Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>
Date: Mar 5, 2010, 15:12 UTC
Message-ID: <20100305151248.GA24748@progeny.tock>
In-Reply-To: <4B90C974.2050405@viscovery.net>

Johannes Sixt wrote:

> Jiri Slaby schrieb:

Show 14 quoted lines

>> having 'linux' line in .gitignore makes 'include/linux/vga_switcheroo.h'
>> to be ignored
>
> That's the behavior that I would expect.
>
>> though the documentation says:
>> ***
>> If the pattern does not contain a slash /, git treats it as a shell
>> glob pattern and checks for a match against the pathname without
>> leading directories.
>> ***
>
> and this citation confirms my expectation. Note that it says "pathname",
> not "filename". 'include/linux' is a "pathname".

It would be more precise to say this citation does not have much to do with it. 'include/linux' contains a slash, so that paragraph does not describe what it means.

The next paragraph is more on point:

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

The relevant sentence is the last one, and I can see how the length of the paragraph might be daunting. Maybe splitting it up would help?

 · 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" and
   "tools/perf/Documentation/perf-diff.html" but not
   "Documentation/ppc/ppc.html".

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

Not sure.

Jonathan

-- %< --
Subject: gitignore.5: Clarify that path matches are not anchored

Signed-off-by: Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>
---
 Documentation/gitignore.txt |   11 +++++++----
 1 files changed, 7 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)

diff --git a/Documentation/gitignore.txt b/Documentation/gitignore.txt
index 98c459d..fa15422 100644
--- a/Documentation/gitignore.txt
+++ b/Documentation/gitignore.txt
@@ -89,10 +89,13 @@ Patterns have the following format:
    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".  A leading slash matches the
-   beginning of the pathname; for example, "/*.c" matches
-   "cat-file.c" but not "mozilla-sha1/sha1.c".
+   "Documentation/git.html" and
+   "tools/perf/Documentation/perf-diff.html" but not
+   "Documentation/ppc/ppc.html".
+
+ - A leading slash matches the beginning of the pathname;
+   for example, "/*.c" matches "cat-file.c" but not
+   "mozilla-sha1/sha1.c".
 
 An example:

-- 
1.7.0