Git Ignore

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Git Ignore and .gitignore

When sharing of the code is done, there are certain files or parts of the project that we don’t wish to share.

Examples

log files
temporary files
hidden files
personal files

Git can specify the files or parts of the project that must be ignored by Git using a .gitignore file.

Git will not track files and folders specified in .gitignore. However, the .gitignore file itself IS tracked by Git.

Create .gitignore

In order to create a .gitignore file, go to the root of the local Git, and create it:

Example

[user@localhost]$ touch .gitignore

Open the file with a text editor.

Now, we’ll add two simple rules:

Any files with the .log extension should be ignored.
Any directory named temp should be ignored.

# ignore ALL .log files

*.log

# ignore ALL files in ANY directory named temp

temp/

Now all .log files and anything in temp folders will be ignored by Git.

Pattern	Explanation/Matches	Examples
	Blank lines are ignored
# text comment	Lines starting with # are ignored
name	All name files, name folders, and files and folders in any name folder	/name.log /name/file.txt /lib/name.log
name/	Ending with / specifies the pattern is for a folder. Matches all files and folders in any name folder	/name/file.txt /name/log/name.log no match: /name.log
name.file	All files with the name.file	/name.file /lib/name.file
/name.file	Starting with / specifies the pattern matches only files in the root folder	/name.file no match: /lib/name.file
lib/name.file	Patterns specifiing files in specific folders are always realative to root (even if you do not start with / )	/lib/name.file no match: name.file /test/lib/name.file
**/lib/name.file	Starting with ** before / specifies that it matches any folder in the repository. Not just on root.	/lib/name.file /test/lib/name.file
**/name	All name folders, and files and folders in any name folder	/name/log.file /lib/name/log.file /name/lib/log.file
/lib/**/name	All name folders, and files and folders in any name folder within the lib folder.	/lib/name/log.file /lib/test/name/log.file /lib/test/ver1/name/log.file no match: /name/log.file
*.file	All files withe .file extention	/name.file /lib/name.file
*name/	All folders ending with name	/lastname/log.file /firstname/log.file
name?.file	? matches a single non-specific character	/names.file /name1.file no match: /names1.file
name[a-z].file	[range] matches a single character in the specified range (in this case a character in the range of a-z, and also be numberic.)	/names.file /nameb.file no match: /name1.file
name[abc].file	[set] matches a single character in the specified set of characters (in this case either a, b, or c)	/namea.file /nameb.file no match: /names.file
name[!abc].file	[!set] matches a single character, except the ones specified characters (in this case a, b, or c)	/names.file /namex.file no match: /namesb.file
*.file	All files withe .file extention	/name.file /lib/name.file
name/ !name/secret.log	! specifies a negation or exception.	/name/file.txt /name/log/name.log no match: /name/secret.log
.file !name*.file	! specifies a negation or exception.	/log.file /lastname.file no match: /name.file
.file !name/.file junk.*	Adding new patterns after a negation will re-ignore a previous negated file. All files withe the .file extension, except the ones in the name folder. Unless the file name is junk	/log.file /name/log.file no match: /name/junk.file

Local and Personal Git Ignore Rules

We can also ignore files or folders but not show them in the distributed .gitignore file.

These kinds of ignoring are specified in the .git/info/exclude file. It works a similar way as .gitignore and is not known to anyone else