Re: Bug: git add does not process gitignore properly

From: Eric Sunshine <sunshine@sunshineco.com>
Date: Jun 23, 2023, 22:07 UTC
Message-ID: <CAPig+cQ1qzO5txhZhki4UrvLBThdgo-aknBmEkNSjFhR9WXLRg@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <CWLP265MB3841D32521E79202079DB7F58C22A@CWLP265MB3841.GBRP265.PROD.OUTLOOK.COM>

On Thu, Jun 22, 2023 at 3:56 PM David C Black <david.black@doulos.com> wrote:

Show 16 quoted lines

> Sitting at the rood of my working directory I attempted to add a file to the git repository with:
> > git add extern/bin/build
>
> The repository had the following .gitignore file contents:
> > /extern/
> > !/extern/bin/
> > !/extern/ABOUT.md
>
> I received an error message:
> > The following paths are ignored by one of your .gitignore files:
> > extern
> > hint: Use -f if you really want to add them.
>
> By negating entries in the /extern/bin/ directory, I did not expect an error
> message. Of course adding -f made it work, but I think it does not match the
> described behavior for this tool.

This appears to be working as documented. From the gitginore(5) man page:

    An optional prefix "!" which negates the pattern; any matching
    file excluded by a previous pattern will become included again. It
    is not possible to re-include a file if a parent directory of that
    file is excluded.

In your .gitignore file, /extern/ is ignored, which means that the subsequent "!/extern/.../" lines are ineffectual. So, as far as Git is concerned, /extern/bin/build is indeed ignored, thus its refusal without --force.