From: Devste Devste <devstemail@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 05 Oct 2025 11:27:15 GMT
Subject: git clean deletes negated pathspec if directory causing data loss
Message-ID: <CANM0SV0R7OYJKeBAs5-WY2Wqp7VxhKv5=LQ4cuDd6MaQwNqGNw@mail.gmail.com>

I am using:
git version 2.51.0.windows.1

Run:
echo .idea/dictionaries >> .gitignore
mkdir -p .idea/dictionaries
touch .idea/dictionaries/foo.xml
git clean -f -f -d -X --dry-run -- ':!/.idea/dictionaries' ':*.rej' ':/*/*.log'

Outputs:
Would remove .idea/dictionaries/

No matter how you specify the pathspec (':!.idea',...) it always wants
to delete the .idea/dictionaries directory, even though it does not
contain any .rej or .log files and is explicitly set to excluded