Re: [PATCH 0/1] gitignore: ignore comments on the same line as a pattern

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Oct 2, 2019, 06:51 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqtv8rej30.fsf@gitster-ct.c.googlers.com>
In-Reply-To: <pull.370.git.gitgitgadget@gmail.com>

"Chris Zehner via GitGitGadget" <gitgitgadget@gmail.com> writes:

Show 16 quoted lines

> Why make this change?
> =====================
>
> Add the ability to use # to put comments after ignore patterns. This is
> useful for documenting the reason for particular ignore patterns inclusion
> and structure.
>
> Right now a common convention in .gitignore files is to group patterns by
> similarity, using new lines beginning with one or more # characters as
> headings to explain these groupings. This works well when clarifying why
> broad classes of things are ignored, e.g. # build artifacts followed by
> several patterns.
>
> When leaving comments about a particular pattern it can be difficult to
> distinguish comments about a single patterns from comments used for file
> organization.

Not a good enough justification to break backward compatibility, I would have to say. If a single line is so tricky to deserve its own comment, perhaps a group of lines can be separated with the next group by a handful of blank lines for clarity (or the project can adopt a convention that differentiates between comments on a group and comments on an individual rule).