git-ignore - Modify or display .gitignore files
git-ignore [<context>] [<action>] [--] [<pattern> [<pattern>]...]
Modifies or shows .gitignore of selected context.
Possible actions are: addition of new patterns, removal of existing patterns from gitignore files, opening these files in text editor or simply displaying their contents in current terminal (for details see flags/usage).
Contexts are global (e.g. $HOME/.gitignore or $HOME/.local/.git/.gitignore), private (e.g. .../project/.git/info/exclude) and local (e.g. .../project/.gitignore)
Adding only happens for patterns that don't already exist in the file; removing patterns that are not present does not do anything; editing fails if the file is not yet present.
At most 1 context and 1 action matter for the program, the ones selected are the latest encountered in the flag list.
Default behavior:
If no flags or arguments are passed, prints gitignores of all 3 contexts.
Passing arguments with no action implies addition of patterns to gitignore.
If an action is chosen, but not context, action is performed on local gitignore.
If context is chosen but not action (not even implied), gitignore of chosen context is printed.
<context>
-l, --local
Sets the context to the .gitignore file in the current working directory. (default)
-g, --global
Sets the context to the global gitignore file for the current user.
-p, --private
Sets the context to the private exclude file for the repository (.git/info/exclude).
<action>
-e, --edit
Sets action to edit. This will open gitignore in a text editor (editor selection is the same as for git commit). If no context is provided local is assumed. Any pattern; provided in additional arguments is silently omitted.
-r, --remove
Sets action to remove. This will look for patterns in gitignore of selected context and remove if finds them. If no pattern is provided does nothing. All characters in pattern are treated literally, no interpretation of metacharacters is performed as would be, for example, for a regex pattern.
<pattern>
A space delimited list of patterns to append to the file in context.
--
End of options delimeter. Everything to the right of it is treated as positional arguments or more precisely a pattern.
-h, --help
Print a brief usage summary.
Pattern format as described in the git manual
A blank line matches no files, so it can serve as a separator for readability. To append a blank line use empty quotes "".
A line starting with # serves as a comment. For example, "# This is a comment"
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. To use an exclamation ! as command line argument it is best placed between single quotes ''. For example, '!src'
If the pattern ends with a slash, it is removed for the purpose of the following description, but it would only find a match with a directory. In other words, foo/ will match a directory foo and paths underneath it, but will not match a regular file or a symbolic link foo (this is consistent with the way how pathspec works in general in git).
If the pattern does not contain a slash /, git treats it as a shell glob pattern and checks for a match against the pathname relative to the location of the .gitignore file (relative to the top level of the work tree if not from a .gitignore file).
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. For example, "Documentation/*.html" matches "Documentation/git.html" but not "Documentation/ppc/ppc.html" or "tools/perf/Documentation/perf.html".
A leading slash matches the beginning of the pathname. For example, "/*.c" matches "cat-file.c" but not "mozilla-sha1/sha1.c".
All arguments are optional so calling git-ignore alone will display global, local and private gitignore files in order:
$ git ignore
Global gitignore: /home/alice/.gitignore
# Numerous always-ignore extensions
*.diff
*.err
*.orig
*.rej
*.swo
*.swp
*.vi
*~
*.sass-cache
# OS or Editor folders
.DS_Store
.Trashes
._*
Thumbs.db
---------------------------------
Local gitignore: .gitignore
.cache
.project
.settings
.tmproj
nbproject
---------------------------------
Private gitignore: .git/info/exclude
notes.txt
test.sh
.env.local
config.json
If you only want to see the global context use the --global argument (for local use --local, for private use --private):
$ git ignore
Global gitignore: /home/alice/.gitignore
.DS_Store
.Trashes
._*
Thumbs.db
To quickly append a new pattern to the default/local context simply:
$ git ignore *.log
Adding pattern(s) to: .gitignore
... adding '*.log'
You can now configure any patterns without ever using an editor (or use a shortcut to open file in editor when needed), with a context and pattern arguments: The resulting configuration is also returned for your convenience.
$ git ignore --local "" "# Temporary files" *.tmp "*.log" tmp/* "" "# Files I'd like to keep" '!work' ""
Adding pattern(s) to: .gitignore
... adding ''
... adding '# Temporary files'
... adding '*.tmp'
... adding '*.log'
... adding 'tmp/*'
... adding ''
... adding '# Files I'd like to keep'
... adding '!work'
... adding ''
Local gitignore: .gitignore
# Temporary files
*.tmp
*.log
tmp/*
# Files I'd like to keep
!work
Removing patterns works in a similar way. Select context and pass patterns to be removed from the gitignore file.
$ git ignore -l -r "*.log"
Removing patterns from local gitignore: .gitignore
... removing '*.log'
Local gitignore: .gitignore
# Temporary files
*.tmp
tmp/*
# Files I'd like to keep
!work
If you want to open gitignore in an editor and do changes manually pass -e flag:
$ git ignore -p -e
Written by Tj Holowaychuk <tj@vision-media.ca> and Tema Bolshakov <tweekane@gmail.com> and Nick Lombard <github@jigsoft.co.za> and Kirill Dergachev <kdergachev1062@gmail.com>
<https://github.com/tj/git-extras/issues>
<https://github.com/tj/git-extras>