Re: Why does git track directory listed in .gitignore/".git/info/exclude"?

From: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Date: Jan 23, 2008, 21:17 UTC
Message-ID: <alpine.LFD.1.00.0801231313590.2803@woody.linux-foundation.org>
In-Reply-To: <6bc632150801230604p2589c893pa05bb6f27e482de8@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, 23 Jan 2008, pradeep singh rautela wrote:

Show 13 quoted lines

>
> Apologies to all.Kindly pardon my novice experiments with git.
> Some more trial and error method led to find that you have to put a *
> at the end of the directory too.
>
> i.e xen-3.1.0-src/*
> 
> But i still would like to ask git gurus here.
> Isn't it fine to include a directory name as
> 
>    $directory_name/
>     instead of
>    $directory_name/*

Heh.

I think your problem is that "/" itself. By adding it, the exclude information does *not* match the directory entry itself (because the directory entry itself is called just "xen-3.1.0-src" - note no slash!), and since you added it, it also doesn't match any names _under_ that directory exactly.

So what you *should* have done is to just tell git to ignore the directory named "xen-3.1.0-src", and you'd have been ok.

Using "xen-3.1.0-src/*" works too, but it is heavy-handed and unnecessary.

		Linus