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Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation')
| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/user-manual.txt | 63 |
1 files changed, 18 insertions, 45 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/user-manual.txt b/Documentation/user-manual.txt index d6caff4248..0331bad257 100644 --- a/Documentation/user-manual.txt +++ b/Documentation/user-manual.txt @@ -1100,20 +1100,14 @@ backup files made by your editor. Of course, 'not' tracking files with git is just a matter of 'not' calling "`git add`" on them. But it quickly becomes annoying to have these untracked files lying around; e.g. they make "`git add .`" and "`git commit -a`" practically useless, and they keep -showing up in the output of "`git status`", etc. +showing up in the output of "`git status`". -Git therefore provides "exclude patterns" for telling git which files to -actively ignore. Exclude patterns are thoroughly explained in the -gitlink:gitignore[5] manual page, but the heart of the concept is simply -a list of files which git should ignore. Entries in the list may contain -globs to specify multiple files, or may be prefixed by "`!`" to -explicitly include (un-ignore) a previously excluded (ignored) file -(i.e. later exclude patterns override earlier ones). The following -example should illustrate such patterns: +You can tell git to ignore certain files by creating a file called .gitignore +in the top level of your working directory, with contents such as: ------------------------------------------------- # Lines starting with '#' are considered comments. -# Ignore foo.txt. +# Ignore any file named foo.txt. foo.txt # Ignore (generated) html files, *.html @@ -1123,41 +1117,20 @@ foo.txt *.[oa] ------------------------------------------------- -The next question is where to put these exclude patterns so that git can -find them. Git looks for exclude patterns in the following files: - -`.gitignore` files in your working tree::: - You may store multiple `.gitignore` files at various locations in your - working tree. Each `.gitignore` file is applied to the directory where - it's located, including its subdirectories. Furthermore, the - `.gitignore` files can be tracked like any other files in your working - tree; just do a "`git add .gitignore`" and commit. `.gitignore` is - therefore the right place to put exclude patterns that are meant to - be shared between all project participants, such as build output files - (e.g. `\*.o`), etc. -`.git/info/exclude` in your repo::: - Exclude patterns in this file are applied to the working tree as a - whole. Since the file is not located in your working tree, it does - not follow push/pull/clone like `.gitignore` can do. This is therefore - the place to put exclude patterns that are local to your copy of the - repo (i.e. 'not' shared between project participants), such as - temporary backup files made by your editor (e.g. `\*~`), etc. -The file specified by the `core.excludesfile` config directive::: - By setting the `core.excludesfile` config directive you can tell git - where to find more exclude patterns (see gitlink:git-config[1] for - more information on configuration options). This config directive - can be set in the per-repo `.git/config` file, in which case the - exclude patterns will apply to that repo only. Alternatively, you - can set the directive in the global `~/.gitconfig` file to apply - the exclude pattern to all your git repos. As with the above - `.git/info/exclude` (and, indeed, with git config directives in - general), this directive does not follow push/pull/clone, but remain - local to your repo(s). - -[NOTE] -In addition to the above alternatives, there are git commands that can take -exclude patterns directly on the command line. See gitlink:git-ls-files[1] -for an example of this. +See gitlink:gitignore[5] for a detailed explanation of the syntax. You can +also place .gitignore files in other directories in your working tree, and they +will apply to those directories and their subdirectories. The `.gitignore` +files can be added to your repository like any other files (just run `git add +.gitignore` and `git commit`, as usual), which is convenient when the exclude +patterns (such as patterns matching build output files) would also make sense +for other users who clone your repository. + +If you wish the exclude patterns to affect only certain repositories +(instead of every repository for a given project), you may instead put +them in a file in your repository named .git/info/exclude, or in any file +specified by the `core.excludesfile` configuration variable. Some git +commands can also take exclude patterns directly on the command line. +See gitlink:gitignore[5] for the details. [[how-to-merge]] How to merge |