From: Karsten Blees Date: Thu, 07 Nov 2013 16:31:36 GMT Subject: [PATCH 2/2] gitignore.txt: clarify recursive nature of excluded directories Message-ID: <527BC068.3040303@gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <527BC00D.8000501@gmail.com> Additionally, precedence of negated patterns is exactly as outlined in the DESCRIPTION section, we don't need to repeat this. Signed-off-by: Karsten Blees --- Documentation/gitignore.txt | 18 ++++++++++++++++-- 1 file changed, 16 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-) diff --git a/Documentation/gitignore.txt b/Documentation/gitignore.txt index f971960..5ecc48e 100644 --- a/Documentation/gitignore.txt +++ b/Documentation/gitignore.txt @@ -79,8 +79,9 @@ PATTERN FORMAT - 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. + included again. It is not possible to re-include a file if a parent + directory of that file is excluded (i.e. excluding a directory + will recursively and irrevocably exclude the entire content). Put a backslash ("`\`") in front of the first "`!`" for patterns that begin with a literal "`!`", for example, "`\!important!.txt`". @@ -182,6 +183,19 @@ Another example: The second .gitignore prevents Git from ignoring `arch/foo/kernel/vmlinux.lds.S`. +Example to exclude everything except a specific directory `foo/bar` +(note the `/*` - without the slash, the wildcard would also exclude +everything within `foo/bar`): + +-------------------------------------------------------------- + $ cat .gitignore + # exclude everything except directory foo/bar + /* + !/foo + /foo/* + !/foo/bar +-------------------------------------------------------------- + SEE ALSO -------- linkgit:git-rm[1], -- 1.8.4.msysgit.0.12.g88f5ed0