# gitignore and shared worktrees (was: finding the right remote branch for a commit)

3 messages from 2007-07-17 to 2007-08-17. Participants: martin f krafft, Johannes Schindelin.
Thread: https://gitlist.dev/t/9070

## martin f krafft, 2007-07-17 13:09

Subject: gitignore and shared worktrees (was: finding the right remote branch for a commit)
Message-ID: <20070717130936.GA19724@piper.oerlikon.madduck.net>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/20070717130936.GA19724%40piper.oerlikon.madduck.net

```
Sorry for the somewhat late reply, I just found time on the weekend
to check out this suggestion by Johannes

  (http://marc.info/?l=git&m=118418927823760&w=2)

also sprach Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de> [2007.07.11.2126 +0200]:
> Come to think of it, this is maybe what I would have done, but it
> appears to me that this is the _ideal_ use case for worktree:
> 
> In $HOME/gits:
> 
> $ mkdir vim.git && cd vim.git
> $ git --work-tree=$HOME init
> $ cat >> info/exclude < EOF
> *
> !/.vimrc
> EOF
> 
> Then you could do all Git operations like push, fetch, pull, log in 
> $HOME/gits/vim.git, and all editing in $HOME.

This actually seems to work really nicely, but I am somewhat
displeased by the gitignore/exclude handling, since it's local. What
I want to do is synchronise the vim configuration across many
workstations with git, and I don't want to have to modify
$GIT_DIR/info/exclude on each machine.

So I am tempted to use .gitignore, but that lives in the worktree,
and since the suggestion is to share worktrees between different git
repos, I can only ever have one .gitignore file, which would have to
list ignores for *all* repos in $HOME/gits, which breaks my head.

Do you have any other idea on how to handle ignores? I guess one
alternative is just to ignore git status output altogether, but
that's not really nice.

Would people consider honoring .gitignore-* in addition to just
.gitignore? Or maybe even honouring .gitignore/*, if .gitignore is
a directory, not a file?

Cheers,

-- 
martin;              (greetings from the heart of the sun.)
  \____ echo mailto: !#^."<*>"|tr "<*> mailto:" net@madduck
 
spamtraps: madduck.bogus@madduck.net
 
"i like .net for the same reason i like gentoo. it keeps all the
 people with no clue from writing c code, which is much harder for me
 to identify and eliminate from my systems. in the same way that
 gentoo gives those people a place to be that isn't in debian"
                                                    -- andrew suffield

```

## martin f krafft, 2007-08-16 10:22

Subject: gitignore and shared worktrees (resend)
Message-ID: <20070816102225.GA5351@piper.oerlikon.madduck.net>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/20070816102225.GA5351%40piper.oerlikon.madduck.net
In-Reply-To: <20070717130936.GA19724@piper.oerlikon.madduck.net>

```
I sent the following message a month ago to the mailing list and
never got a reply. Just to make sure it didn't simply get
overlooked, I am reposting.

Basically the issue is with using multiple git repos all sharing the
same worktree, and that I cannot come up with a sensible way to
maintain the .gitignore file such that it is part of the repo (and
thus exists in other clones as well).

I found that one can actually add and commit $GIT_DIR/info/exclude to
a repo (quite possibly a bug), but the checkout fails without -f, so
this is not really an option.

I could set core.excludesfile to some unique name, but that again is
not saved in the repository and requires manual intervention after
cloning.

I still like best the suggestion to honour .gitignore/* in case
.gitignore is a directory instead of a file. Would people be
interested in a patch for this?

----- Forwarded message from martin f krafft <madduck@madduck.net> -----

Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2007 15:09:36 +0200
From: martin f krafft <madduck@madduck.net>
To: git@vger.kernel.org
Cc: Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de>
Subject: gitignore and shared worktrees (was: finding the right remote
	branch for a commit)
Message-ID: <20070717130936.GA19724@piper.oerlikon.madduck.net>

Sorry for the somewhat late reply, I just found time on the weekend
to check out this suggestion by Johannes

  (http://marc.info/?l=git&m=118418927823760&w=2)

also sprach Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de> [2007.07.11.2126 +0200]:
> Come to think of it, this is maybe what I would have done, but it
> appears to me that this is the _ideal_ use case for worktree:
> 
> In $HOME/gits:
> 
> $ mkdir vim.git && cd vim.git
> $ git --work-tree=$HOME init
> $ cat >> info/exclude < EOF
> *
> !/.vimrc
> EOF
> 
> Then you could do all Git operations like push, fetch, pull, log in 
> $HOME/gits/vim.git, and all editing in $HOME.

This actually seems to work really nicely, but I am somewhat
displeased by the gitignore/exclude handling, since it's local. What
I want to do is synchronise the vim configuration across many
workstations with git, and I don't want to have to modify
$GIT_DIR/info/exclude on each machine.

So I am tempted to use .gitignore, but that lives in the worktree,
and since the suggestion is to share worktrees between different git
repos, I can only ever have one .gitignore file, which would have to
list ignores for *all* repos in $HOME/gits, which breaks my head.

Do you have any other idea on how to handle ignores? I guess one
alternative is just to ignore git status output altogether, but
that's not really nice.

Would people consider honoring .gitignore-* in addition to just
.gitignore? Or maybe even honouring .gitignore/*, if .gitignore is
a directory, not a file?

Cheers,

-- 
martin;              (greetings from the heart of the sun.)
  \____ echo mailto: !#^."<*>"|tr "<*> mailto:" net@madduck
 
fashions have done more harm than revolutions.
                                                        -- victor hugo
 
spamtraps: madduck.bogus@madduck.net

```

## Johannes Schindelin, 2007-08-17 22:21

Subject: Re: gitignore and shared worktrees (resend)
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.64.0708172320380.20400@racer.site>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/Pine.LNX.4.64.0708172320380.20400%40racer.site
In-Reply-To: <20070816102225.GA5351@piper.oerlikon.madduck.net>

```
Hi,

On Thu, 16 Aug 2007, martin f krafft wrote:

> Basically the issue is with using multiple git repos all sharing the 
> same worktree, and that I cannot come up with a sensible way to maintain 
> the .gitignore file such that it is part of the repo (and thus exists in 
> other clones as well).

I saw your message, but I could not come up with a reasonable solution.

Ciao,
Dscho

```
