Re: "git rm" seems to do recursive removal even without "-r"

From: Heiko Voigt <hvoigt@hvoigt.net>
Date: Oct 10, 2017, 11:52 UTC
Message-ID: <20171010115250.GA75189@book.hvoigt.net>
In-Reply-To: <alpine.LFD.2.21.1710080736530.21897@localhost.localdomain>

On Sun, Oct 08, 2017 at 07:56:20AM -0400, Robert P. J. Day wrote:

Show 12 quoted lines

>   but as i asked in my earlier post, if i wanted to remove *all* files
> with names of "Makefile*", why can't i use:
> 
>   $ git rm 'Makefile*'
> 
> just as i used:
> 
>   $ git rm '*.c'
> 
> are those not both acceptable fileglobs? why does the former clearly
> only match the top-level Makefile, and refuse to cross directory
> boundaries?

Maybe think about it this way: The only difference between git's globbing and the default shell globbing is that the '/' in a path has a special meaning. The shells expansion stops at a '/' but git does not.

So with *.c the shell matches: blabla.c, blub.c, ... but not subdir/bla.c, subdir/blub.c, ... since it only considers files in the current directory. A little different for Makefile* that will also match Makefile.bla, Makefile/bla or Makefile_bla/blub in shell but not subdir/Makefile or bla.Makefile. Basically anything directly in *this* directory that *starts* with 'Makefile'.

Git on the other hand does not consider '/' to be special. So *.c matches all of the path above: bla.c, blub.c, subdir/bla.c, subdir/blub.c. Basically any file below the current directory with a path that ends in '.c'. With Makefile* it is the opposite: Every file below the current directory that *starts* with 'Makefile'. So Makefile.bla, Makefile/bla, ... but also not subdir/Makefile or bla.Makefile.

Maybe that helps...

Cheers Heiko