Re: [PATCH 2/4] Documentation: clarify effect of '/' in gitignore(5) patterns
- From
Nguyen Thai Ngoc Duy <pclouds@gmail.com>
- Date
- Nov 7, 2011, 10:05 UTC
- Message-ID
- <CACsJy8AnPD7NFeCbMG+vy5YvWWfb5CwaRX=qRkOE8_Hk_9zUNw@mail.gmail.com>
- In-Reply-To
- <20111107080842.GB30486@elie.hsd1.il.comcast.net>
2011/11/7 Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>:
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> The introduction of directory-only matches in v1.5.5-rc0~208^2~1 > (gitignore(5): Allow "foo/" in ignore list to match directory "foo", > 2008-01-31) was a small, incremental change to gitignore syntax that > did not affect the rest of the rules in any major way. A '/' at the > end of a pattern means "match directories only" and does not otherwise > affect the pattern. And that is how the gitignore(5) manpage explains > the syntax. > > However, to a person parsing an unfamiliar gitignore entry like foo/, > it is too easy to notice the later (old) rule that describes how > patterns containing a slash are anchored and miss that the slash > should have been stripped off before considering whether the rule > applies.
I think I make this mistake too. Documenting it is one way. Another way is t
Show 6 quoted lines
> > Let's just explicitly say that patterns are only anchored if they > contain a slash that is not at the end of the pattern, avoiding this > confusion. A more graceful presentation of this material may be > possible, but for now the goal is to get the facts clear --- we can > refactor the text to scan well without losing its meaning later.
I think the first slash in 'foo//' may function as the anchor and it's not very clear to me if it's in the middle of pattern of at the end. Of course we could just change the code to strip all trailing slashes.
-- Duy