My .gitignore file is matching items that I did not expect it to match?

Question

I have a .gitignore file with the following:

cache/

resources/

The file correctly matches the directories in my root:

cache/

resources/

The files in these directories are ignored and therefore because this is a git system, the directories themselves are ignored. This is also good.

But it also matches a sub directory in a sibling root directory:

default/cms/resources/library/index.cfm

And ignores this path which is not good.

How can I rewrite the .gitignore file so that:

default/cms/resources/library/index.cfm

Is not matched?

And only files & subdirectories inside cache/ & resources/ are matched.

Thank you in advance for any advice you can give me.

This is what you need http://stackoverflow.com/questions/987142/make-gitignore-ignore-everything-except-a-few-files — alvits, Nov 16 '15 at 22:27
@alvits Thanks for the link but it does not address this specific issue. The link you have given me, imparts general advice about .gitignore patterns. — Charles Robertson, Nov 16 '15 at 23:10
@alvits For instance would placing a leading forward slash to the examples solve the issue: — Charles Robertson, Nov 16 '15 at 23:13
Placing a `!` before a pattern is what you need. For example you can add `!default/cms/resources` in your `.gitignore` file. — alvits, Nov 16 '15 at 23:21
@alvits Thanks for your advice, but surely there is a cleaner solution. Can you tell me why my example is matching that path in the first place? — Charles Robertson, Nov 17 '15 at 08:00
@alvits Are you telling me I have to trawl through every path in my root excluding everything with 'resources' or 'cache' as a sub directory. That cannot be right? — Charles Robertson, Nov 17 '15 at 08:02

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 17 '15 at 13:12

1

If anyone is interested, I have done some in depth tests using .gitignore [which I probably should have done in the first place, but I guess I was just being lazy], and the answer to the question is:

cache/**
resources/**

I hope this helps anyone, in a similar situation...

answered Nov 17 '15 at 13:12

Charles Robertson

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16
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I honestly have not used `**` which is supposed to be a recursive version of `*`. According [here](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/681262/difference-in-the-paths-in-gitignore-file) it is system dependent. [This doc](http://git-scm.com/docs/gitignore) says that `resources/**` will exclude everything from the directory `resources` relative to the location of `.gitignore`. You just solved your own post. Cheers :) – alvits Nov 17 '15 at 22:38
@alvits It seems to be both recursive to its direct descendants & recursive in sibling directories. In fact, it seems to cover everything! – Charles Robertson Nov 17 '15 at 23:57
@alvits "Excludes everything relative to .gitignore..." Now, this makes sense, in relation to why it covers sibling directories. Thanks for the explanation. – Charles Robertson Nov 18 '15 at 00:01

My .gitignore file is matching items that I did not expect it to match?

1 Answers1