.gitignore isn't ignoring itself

Question

I added .gitignore and another directory to my .gitignore file, but when I git status, .gitignore is still showing up!

I feel like I'm missing something really obvious.

score 35 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 10:27

As Carl Norum pointed out, files are not allowed to be tracked in order to be ignored. You will have to call

git rm --cached .gitignore

in order for it to actually be ignored.

But what you are trying to do is a very bad idea. The .gitignore file is supposed to be tracked, so it’s ensured that the stuff listed in there is actually ignored on all client machines. If that’s not the case, another dev might add a file to the repo that you wanted to ignore, and you will get into trouble.

Even running the command above might already cause trouble, as it will delete that file for every dev.

If for some reason you want to ignore stuff only on your machine (and you are sure that’s a good idea), you need to add that to .git/info/exclude. That file has the same function as .gitignore, but is not supposed to be shared with the other devs.

Thank you for a complete answer with 'why' and 'how to fix'. — Colleen, Dec 20 '12 at 18:36

Carl Norum · Answer 2 · 2012-12-20T18:30:54.330

3

Your .gitignore file only ignores untracked files. Since you're presumably tracking your .gitignore file, you will see changes to it in the output of git status.

If you want to ignore something but you don't want to check it in, add it to your global git ignore file instead of the one checked into the repository.

edited Dec 20 '12 at 18:30

answered Dec 20 '12 at 18:25

Carl Norum

219,201
40
422
469

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Dec 20 '12 at 18:26

2

Possibly because you already added the .gitignore file in the past.

Note that git will not ignore a file that was already tracked before a rule was added to this file to ignore it. In such a case the file must be un-tracked, usually with git rm --cached filename

From https://help.github.com/articles/ignoring-files

answered Dec 20 '12 at 18:26

sorcix

64
3

so here's the stupid question, though: I tried that, and git status-ed and it said "deleted: .gitignore"... if I commit that, will I delete other users' .gitignores? – Colleen Dec 20 '12 at 18:29

score 2 · Answer 4 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:55

2

Stop tracking the .gitignore file:

How to stop tracking and ignore changes to a file in Git?

git rm --cached .gitignore

edited May 23 '17 at 11:55

Community

1
1

answered Dec 20 '12 at 18:26

Layton Everson

1,148
9
18

so here's the stupid question, though: I tried that, and git status-ed and it said "deleted: .gitignore"... if I commit that, will I delete other users' .gitignores? – Colleen Dec 20 '12 at 18:29
It shouldn't. You removed it from your repository, not your file system. The remote should not be tracking it either. If it is, you will need to run that command on your remote or every body using the repo would share .gitignore file. – Layton Everson Dec 20 '12 at 18:35

.gitignore isn't ignoring itself

4 Answers4