Git: Exclude some files when ran git clean

Question

I want to clean up files which ignored by .gitignore, but I want to exclude some files specified by excluding options. And then, I don't want to remove untracked files.

dist                     (ignored)
node_modules             (ignored)
.env                     (ignored but I want to exclude for the cleanup)
I_do_not_want_add_yet.js (untracked, I don't want cleanup some untracked files)
package.json             (There are many other tracked files)

So I looked into some posts and tried the following command:

$ git clean -ndX -e .env
Would remove dist/
Would remove node_modules/
Would remove .env   # Oops!

$ git clean -ndX --exclude='!.env'
Would remove dist/
Would remove node_modules/
Would remove .env   # Oops!

$ git clean -ndx -e .env
Would remove dist/
Would remove node_modules/
Would remove I_do_not_want_add_yet.js   # Oops!

Do you have good ideas?

Given that the main purpose of git-clean is to do the literal opposite of what you want, I'm not sure it's the right tool to begin with. — millimoose, Jan 20 '20 at 04:26
You can use `git status --ignored`, then filter out the files you want to keep from that before deleting. — millimoose, Jan 20 '20 at 04:31
Awesome! I got a good hint from what you said. Its command is helpful. Thank you. — kurone-kito, Jan 24 '20 at 09:28

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 24 '20 at 09:29

1

The problem could solve using the command, which is a little hacky:

git ls-files --other --ignored --exclude-standard \
  | grep -v -E "^\.env" \
  | xargs -I{} rm -rf {}

answered Jan 24 '20 at 09:29

kurone-kito

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Git: Exclude some files when ran git clean

1 Answers1