From: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2025 15:55:59 GMT
Subject: Re: [PATCH] doc: document backslash in gitignore patterns
Message-ID: <20251029155559.GA1134232@coredump.intra.peff.net>
In-Reply-To: <20251029153237.GA1133542@coredump.intra.peff.net>

On Wed, Oct 29, 2025 at 11:32:37AM -0400, Jeff King wrote:

> Subject: [PATCH] doc: document backslash in gitignore patterns

Oh, I forgot to mention: obviously gitattributes inherits the same
behavior here. I looked at whether it would want a similar patch, but it
does not define the pattern format at all, and just punts to "see
gitignore(5) for details". I think that's OK. Unlike where we refer to
fnmatch(3) here, you cannot even begin to wonder how backslashes are
handled by gitattributes without reading gitignore(5). ;)

There's also the "pathspec" entry in gitglossary(7), which does mention
fnmatch(3). Though it is even more confusing because of the literal
matching that pathspecs do. I don't know if we'd want anything there
(and I kind of doubt people get as exotic about patterns there as they
would in gitignore).

-Peff