Exceptions in .gitignore

Question

How can I add an exception to .gitignore, like "ignore all the .dll files BUT myfile.dll"?

score 324 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 10 '10 at 09:55

324

Use ! to negate the pattern:

*.dll
!myfile.dll

answered Mar 10 '10 at 09:55

Ben James

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score 214 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 22 '13 at 16:16

214

If you want to ignore whole folder, except some specific files, then write:

MyFolder/*
!MyFolder/CoolFile.txt

This won't work:

MyFolder/
!MyFolder/CoolFile.txt

answered Dec 22 '13 at 16:16

cubuspl42

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Note that this extends to subdirectories as well. For example, this will work: `MyFolder/sub/* !MyFolder/sub/file.txt` But this won't: `MyFolder/* !MyFolder/sub/file.txt` – ben Jan 14 '15 at 15:39
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The reason - " It is not possible to re-include a file if a parent directory of that file is excluded. Git doesn’t list excluded directories for performance reasons, so any patterns on contained files have no effect, no matter where they are defined. " [https://git-scm.com/docs/gitignore] – Craig Hicks Jun 21 '17 at 03:51
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So "for performance reasons" I have to manually enter 21 different subfolders that have the same name and were previously ignored by a single line, just so I can exclude one file. – endolith Jul 21 '20 at 03:23

Anver Sadhat · Answer 3 · 2021-03-24T10:56:21.430

44

You can also ignore folders like

!src/main/resources/archetype-resources/**/*

you can also ignore nested folder with patterns like

!**/src/test/resources/**/*

For quick creation of .gitignore file try gitignore.io

edited Mar 24 '21 at 10:56

answered Feb 29 '12 at 07:01

Anver Sadhat

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kamayd · Answer 4 · 2016-03-19T15:45:24.543

You can have several .gitignore files working together in a hierarchical manner to achieve your goal. At the root level you may have:

root

*.dll

inside the folder having the myfile.dll you can add another .gitignore file like so:

root/lib/folderwithMyFiledll

!myfile.dll

more info here

An optional prefix "!" which negates the pattern; any matching file excluded by a previous pattern will become included again. Put a backslash ("\") in front of the first "!" for patterns that begin with a literal "!", for example, "!important!.txt". It is possible to re-include a file if a parent directory of that file is excluded if certain conditions are met. See section NOTES for detail.

The doc snippet you pasted seems out of date. The site currently states that you can't re-include files under parent directories. — vivainio, Jan 04 '19 at 14:57

score 9 · Answer 5 · edited Nov 14 '19 at 14:03

9

I did this because I have a folder called /modules that I want to ignore, except everything in the /modules/custom folder. This worked for me. Now my custom modules will get synced to GitHub.

/modules/*
!/modules/custom/

edited Nov 14 '19 at 14:03

Peter Mortensen

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answered Sep 09 '19 at 18:42

Robbiegod

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This is the only method that actually worked for me. – Pete Alvin Feb 01 '20 at 12:19
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OMG thank you, exactly what I was trying to do and amazing how many garbage answers I had to sift through to find this. – Peter Moore Apr 17 '21 at 13:21

Exceptions in .gitignore

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