SYNOPSIS

$GIT_DIR/info/exclude, .gitignore

DESCRIPTION

A gitignore file specifies intentionally untracked files that git should ignore. Files already tracked by git are not affected; see the NOTES below for details.

Each line in a gitignore file specifies a pattern. When deciding whether to ignore a path, git normally checks gitignore patterns from multiple sources, with the following order of precedence, from highest to lowest (within one level of precedence, the last matching pattern decides the outcome):

Which file to place a pattern in depends on how the pattern is meant to be used.

The underlying git plumbing tools, such as git ls-files and git read-tree, read gitignore patterns specified by command-line options, or from files specified by command-line options. Higher-level git tools, such as git status and git add, use patterns from the sources specified above.

PATTERN FORMAT

NOTES

The purpose of gitignore files is to ensure that certain files not tracked by git remain untracked.

To ignore uncommitted changes in a file that is already tracked, use git update-index --assume-unchanged.

To stop tracking a file that is currently tracked, use git rm --cached.

EXAMPLES

    $ git status
    [...]
    # Untracked files:
    [...]
    #       Documentation/foo.html
    #       Documentation/gitignore.html
    #       file.o
    #       lib.a
    #       src/internal.o
    [...]
    $ cat .git/info/exclude
    # ignore objects and archives, anywhere in the tree.
    *.[oa]
    $ cat Documentation/.gitignore
    # ignore generated html files,
    *.html
    # except foo.html which is maintained by hand
    !foo.html
    $ git status
    [...]
    # Untracked files:
    [...]
    #       Documentation/foo.html
    [...]

Another example:

    $ cat .gitignore
    vmlinux*
    $ ls arch/foo/kernel/vm*
    arch/foo/kernel/vmlinux.lds.S
    $ echo '!/vmlinux*' >arch/foo/kernel/.gitignore

The second .gitignore prevents git from ignoring arch/foo/kernel/vmlinux.lds.S.

SEE ALSO

git-rm(1), git-update-index(1), gitrepository-layout(5)

GIT

Part of the git(1) suite