Re: [BUG] gitignore documentation inconsistent with actual behaviour

>
> Duy Nguyen <pclouds@gmail.com> writes:
>
> >> Our matching function comes from rsync originally, whose manpage says:
> >>
> >>     use ’**’ to match anything, including slashes.
> >>
> >> I believe this is accurate as far as the implementation goes.
> >
> > No. "**" semantics is not the same as from rsync. The three cases
> > "**/", "/**/" and "/**" were requested by Junio if I remember
> > correctly. You can search the mail archive for more information.
>
> Perhaps spelling the rules out would be more benefitial for the
> purpose of this thread?  I do not recall what I requested, but let

> me throw out my guesses (i.e. what I would have wished if I were
> making a request to implement something) to keep the thread alive,
> you can correct me, and people can take it from there to update the
> docs ;-)
>
>     A double-asterisk, both of whose ends are adjacent to a
>     directory boundary (i.e. the beginning of the pattern, the end
>     of the pattern or a slash) macthes 0 or more levels of
>     directories.  e.g. **/a/b would match a/b, x/a/b, x/y/a/b, but
>     not z-a/b.  a/**/b would match a/b, a/x/b, but not a/z-b or
>     a-z-b.
>
> What a double-asterisk that does not sit on a directory boundary,
> e.g. "a**b", "a**/b", "a/**b", or "**a/b", matches, as far as I am
> concerned, is undefined, meaning that (1) I do not care all that
> much what the code actually do when a pattern like that is given as
> long as it does not segfault, and (2) I do not think I would mind
> changing the behaviour as a "bugfix", if their current behaviour
> does not make sense and we can come up with a saner alternative.