Windows global gitignore not working... "Untracked files"

Question

Despite having a global gitignore on Windows OS, I am still getting a bunch of "Untracked files".

Below is a truncated list of what it looks like:

Untracked files:
  (use "git add <file>..." to include in what will be committed)
        foo/bar/__pycache__/
        foo/pkg_name.egg-info/
        scripts/MainProcess.log
        scripts/__pycache__/
        test/foo/bar/__pycache__/
        test/test_pkg_name.egg-info/
        venv/

What am I doing wrong? What am I missing?

Background

On Windows 10 Pro my git version is git version 2.34.1.windows.1, and here's my ~/.gitconfig:

[core]
    excludesfile = C:\\Users\\username\\.config\\git\\ignore

git config --list --show-origin outputs:

file:C:/Users/username/.gitconfig       core.excludesfile=C:\Users\username\.config\git\ignore

git check-ignore **.* outputs nothing.

Here is the PowerShell script used to generate the global gitignore:

New-Item -ItemType Directory -Force -Path $Env:USERPROFILE\.config\git

'Global/JetBrains','Global/Vim','Global/VisualStudioCode','Global/macOS','Python','Terraform' `
  | ForEach-Object {
    Invoke-RestMethod -Uri "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/github/gitignore/master/$PSItem.gitignore"
  } > $Env:USERPROFILE\.config\git\ignore

git config --global core.excludesfile $Env:USERPROFILE\.config\git\ignore

The result is a C:\Users\username\.config\git\ignore file in UTF-16 LE encoding with LF endings. You can see the full file in a Pastebin here: https://pastebin.com/a730JHtc

Lastly, the checked out repo also has a per-repo .gitignore (UTF-8 encoding, CRLF line endings) inside that looks like this:

# Follow README.rst instructions on global gitignore

The README.rst instructions it speaks of have been translated into this question.

Research

There are many similar questions like this, none of them solved my problem:

Similar unanswered questions:

Please edit your question to include the contents of your `.gitignore` file as a code block. Also, please tell us what the encoding of that file is (UTF-16 or UTF-8) and whether it has LF or CRLF endings. — bk2204, Jan 24 '22 at 23:29
Okay @bk2204 done! Let me know if you need any more information — Intrastellar Explorer, Jan 25 '22 at 00:04

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 25 '22 at 00:42

3

Your problem is that your ignore file is in UTF-16. While UTF-16 is common on Windows, it is practically unused elsewhere outside of some programming languages, and UTF-8 has mostly supplanted it. Git accepts ignore files only in UTF-8 or other ASCII-compatible encodings (in the event your patterns contain non-UTF-8 characters), so you'll need to change your file to be in the proper format for it to work.

I would also recommend using LF endings, although I don't believe those are absolutely required for it to work.

answered Jan 25 '22 at 00:42

bk2204

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WOW after switching to UTF-8, it works!! I did not expect the file encoding to matter, thank you @bk2204 so much, the more you know. Looks like the `CRLF` line ending in the local `.gitignore` was not an issue. – Intrastellar Explorer Jan 25 '22 at 02:33
Relevant issue in Git for Windows: [Non UTF-8 encoded .gitignore files are silently ignored.](https://github.com/git-for-windows/git/issues/3329) – Intrastellar Explorer Jan 25 '22 at 04:56
1

This isn't a bug. UTF-16 typically contains many NUL bytes, which makes it indistinguishable from random binary data. ASCII-compatible encodings are always going to be required,as they should be. – bk2204 Jan 25 '22 at 09:55

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 25 '22 at 02:35

For what it's worth, taking into account the answer, we can update the PowerShell global gitignore creation command to:

New-Item -ItemType Directory -Force -Path $Env:USERPROFILE\.config\git
'Global/JetBrains','Global/Vim','Global/VisualStudioCode','Global/macOS','Python','Terraform' `
  | ForEach-Object {
    Invoke-RestMethod -Uri "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/github/gitignore/master/$PSItem.gitignore"
  } `
  | Add-Content -Encoding UTF8 -Path $Env:USERPROFILE\.config\git\ignore

It turns out the git config --global core.excludesfile $Env:USERPROFILE\.config\git\ignore last line from above is not necessary.

Windows global gitignore not working... "Untracked files"

2 Answers2