Eric Blake wrote:
> I was trying to whitelist a single file pattern in a directory
> that I was otherwise content to ignore, but when I tried:
>
> /m4/
> !/m4/virt-*.m4
>
> then 'git add' kept warning me that I had to use -f. I finally
> figured out that ignoring a directory is much different than ignoring
> all files in a directory, when it comes to later negation patterns:
>
> /m4/*
> !/m4/virt-*.m4
>
> Improving the documentation will help others learn from my mistake.
>
> Signed-off-by: Eric Blake <eblake@xxxxxxxxxx>
Yes.
Acked-by: Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@xxxxxxxxx>
Cc-ing Hannes, in case he has thoughts on how to explain this more
intuitively.
> ---
> Documentation/gitignore.txt | 19 +++++++++++++++++--
> 1 files changed, 17 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
>
> diff --git a/Documentation/gitignore.txt b/Documentation/gitignore.txt
> index 2e7328b..2f49989 100644
> --- a/Documentation/gitignore.txt
> +++ b/Documentation/gitignore.txt
> @@ -70,7 +70,9 @@ PATTERN FORMAT
> - An optional prefix '!' which negates the pattern; any
> matching file excluded by a previous pattern will become
> included again. If a negated pattern matches, this will
> - override lower precedence patterns sources.
> + override lower precedence patterns sources. However, a
> + file negation does not override a path that has already
> + been excluded by a directory match.
>
> - If the pattern ends with a slash, it is removed for the
> purpose of the following description, but it would only find
> @@ -87,7 +89,8 @@ PATTERN FORMAT
>
> - Otherwise, git treats the pattern as a shell glob suitable
> for consumption by fnmatch(3) with the FNM_PATHNAME flag:
> - wildcards in the pattern will not match a / in the pathname.
> + wildcards in the pattern will not match a / in the pathname,
> + and do not ignore files with a leading . in the pathname.
> For example, "Documentation/{asterisk}.html" matches
> "Documentation/git.html" but not "Documentation/ppc/ppc.html"
> or "tools/perf/Documentation/perf.html".
> @@ -116,8 +119,11 @@ EXAMPLES
> [...]
> # Untracked files:
> [...]
> + # Documentation/build
> # Documentation/foo.html
> # Documentation/gitignore.html
> + # build/log
> + # build/.file
> # file.o
> # lib.a
> # src/internal.o
> @@ -125,6 +131,10 @@ EXAMPLES
> $ cat .git/info/exclude
> # ignore objects and archives, anywhere in the tree.
> *.[oa]
> + # ignore files in the immediate child directory build,
> + /build/*
> + # except for the log.
> + !/build/log
> $ cat Documentation/.gitignore
> # ignore generated html files,
> *.html
> @@ -134,10 +144,15 @@ EXAMPLES
> [...]
> # Untracked files:
> [...]
> + # Documentation/build
> # Documentation/foo.html
> + # build/log
> [...]
> --------------------------------------------------------------
>
> +Note that using `!/build/log' works with an earlier `/build/*' but
> +would have no effect if there were an earlier `/build/'.
> +
> Another example:
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> --
> 1.7.4
>
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