Re: Change in .gitignore handling: intended or bug?

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Mar 9, 2016, 18:02 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqk2lbil7k.fsf@gitster.mtv.corp.google.com>
In-Reply-To: <CACsJy8AUs-DAo-GceO9ND9RPVeDOfm_UM4ZuaeNWDwBVMu+dnQ@mail.gmail.com>

Duy Nguyen <pclouds@gmail.com> writes:

Show 20 quoted lines

> On Wed, Mar 9, 2016 at 1:10 AM, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:
>> diff --git a/Documentation/gitignore.txt b/Documentation/gitignore.txt
>> index 3ded6fd..91d1ce2 100644
>> --- a/Documentation/gitignore.txt
>> +++ b/Documentation/gitignore.txt
>> @@ -148,7 +148,43 @@ excluded, the following conditions must be met:
>>     be in the same .gitignore file.
>>
>>   - The directory part in the re-include rules must be literal (i.e. no
>> -   wildcards)
>> +   wildcards and has to start with a `/`).
>
> Technically '/' can just appear anywhere in the pattern, except at the
> end. But because the patterns in question must look like this
>
>     dir # or any pattern, even "*"
>     !dir/someth*ng
>
> even if there is a slash at the end (and is ignored), we are still
> good. Not sure how to phrase that though.

Post 2.8, we'd be correcting this properly anyway, we should aim for the simplest-to-explain way to work around the limitation in the current code, that will still work once the bug is fixed. I am not sure if "Technically it can be other things" helps, unless it makes it a lot easier to use.

With that in mind, do you think we need to find a better phrase to loosen what I wrote that is overly-strict? That is, is "must begin with '/' to anchor it to the level .gitignore appears" too strict to make it too hard to use?