# clarify documentation of leading "**" in gitignore(5) man page 1 messages from 2017-10-27 to 2017-10-27. Participants: David Prager Branner. Thread: https://gitlist.dev/t/47044 ## David Prager Branner, 2017-10-27 14:51 Subject: clarify documentation of leading "**" in gitignore(5) man page Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/alpine.DEB.2.20.1710271043190.1400%40brannerchinese ``` I've long been confused by something in the man page for gitignore. I think it's unclear and I'd like to propose a change. The passage is this (source at https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/git/git-manpages.git/tree/man5/gitignore.5): > Two consecutive asterisks ("**") in patterns matched against full > pathname may have special meaning: > > o A leading "**" followed by a slash means match in all directories. > For example, "**/foo" matches file or directory "foo" anywhere, the > same as pattern "foo". "**/foo/bar" matches file or directory "bar" > anywhere that is directly under directory "foo". > > ... In the first paragraph, it would be clearer to specify: > Two consecutive asterisks ("**"), in patterns matched against a full > pathname, are a wildcard representing some arbitrary number of nested > directories within that pathname: In the second paragraph, I suggest removing the first pattern, "**/foo", since it is completely redundant. There are no circumstances when "**/foo" is necessary in place of plain "foo", and its presence muddies discussion. Leading "**" may represent nested directories in a pathname, but is useful only before a _pattern_ containing nested directories. I suggest making that explicit. Here is how I propose to rewrite it: > o A leading "**", followed by a slash and a pattern containing nested > directories, means match that pattern in all pathnames. > For example, "**/foo/bar" matches file or directory "bar" > anywhere that is directly under directory "foo". It would match > "foo/bar", "other/foo/bar", "src/foo/bar/scram/gravy". Thanks. - dpb ```