Sitaram Chamarty <sitaramc@xxxxxxxxx> writes: > On 2009-02-24, Junio C Hamano <gitster@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: >> I think you are looking for "/foo/". From Documentation/gitignore.txt: > > [lots of very clear and detailed explanation snipped for > brevity...] > > I'd been sort of struggling with the part of 'man gitignore' > that describes the rules for the exclusion patterns; it just > didn't seem as clear as it could have been. It's very > accurate, but I (and I noticed a few others on irc) had to > read very carefully to do anything moderately complex. The existing documentation has an unfortunate history behind it and the "if it ends with a slash it matches only directories" was bolted on as an afterthought; see d6b8fc3 (gitignore(5): Allow "foo/" in ignore list to match directory "foo", 2008-01-31). > A few days ago, 'doener' (Björn Steinbrink) came up with > some much simpler rules that said the same thing, and -- > building on the insight that his rules gave me -- I came up > with these: > > ----->8----- > > Note that rule 1 merely *modifies* rules 2 and 3, it does not > supercede or preclude them. > > 1. If you pattern ends with a slash, it matches only > directories (and their contents) > 2. If there is no slash otherwise, it matches that name, at > any depth in the tree > 3. If there is a slash anywhere else, it matches that name, > relative to the .gitignore (or $GIT_WORK_TREE if the > pattern is from one of the other pattern sources like > `.git/info/exclude` etc) > > The wildcards (`*` and `?`) do not match slashes, but otherwise > the patterns are normal shell globs as defined by fnmatch(3) with > the FNM_PATHNAME flag set. > > ----->8----- Nicely written, except that as a non-native speaker I fear "otherwise" and "anywhere else" _might_ leave ambiguity for a pattern that has slash only at the end [*1*], but I dunno. It certainly is much better than what I wrote in the current documentation. Please send it in a patch form (possibly addressing my ambiguity concern if it is real for other people) with a one-liner log message that says "The existing documentation is unreadable even though it may be precise", and I'll apply. Thanks. [Footnote] *1* That is why I wrote "it is removed for the purpose of..." in the description, even though I do agree that paragraph is hard to read. Perhaps I should have said "it only matches directories. The slash at the end is ignored for the purpose of the following rules." which probably would have flowed a bit more naturally. -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
