opposite of .gitignore file?

Question

Possible Duplicate:
Make .gitignore ignore everything except a few files

Is it possible to let git ignore all files by default, unless specified in a special file?

As sehe says, the "ignore everything then specify exceptions" approach is probably easiest - see also http://stackoverflow.com/q/987142/223092 and http://stackoverflow.com/q/1248570/223092 — Mark Longair, May 15 '11 at 21:59
Not really a duplicate. Solution may be a duplicate, but the idea is to only track listed files. IE. config files in user's home directory on Linux. — xtian, Aug 04 '17 at 15:40

sehe · Accepted Answer · 2012-10-09T06:46:41.297

158

You can include !-lines to whitelist files: a .gitignore with:

*
!included/

will exclude all, but the 'included/' directory

Note that if you want files matching a pattern to be un-ignored, in subdirectories, you will need to prevent the containing directories from getting ignored too. This should not pose a large problem, since git doesn't actually track directories, only files (identified by a repository path).

Example:

*
!*/
!SOURCES

will ignore everything, except SOURCES in subdirectories.

edited Oct 09 '12 at 06:46

answered May 15 '11 at 21:55

sehe

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And of course, this is all documented in [`man gitignore`](http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/gitignore.html). – Cascabel May 15 '11 at 22:07
link broken. Use http://linux.die.net/man/5/gitignore – jldupont Oct 05 '11 at 16:57
2

it do not work for me when the path is a directory... just for files. – semente May 31 '12 at 00:10
11

As shown [here](http://stackoverflow.com/a/9227991/321973) you also need to add a `!*/` exception so parent paths are allowed (also @semente) – Tobias Kienzler Oct 09 '12 at 06:37
@TobiasKienzler That's a great addition. I have added it to the answer for posterity – sehe Oct 09 '12 at 06:52
3

Of course, you will probably also want to whitelist the .gitignore file: `!*.gitignore` – David Cook May 25 '16 at 04:20

score 15 · Answer 2 · answered May 15 '11 at 21:57

15

You can use .gitignore for that.

*
!file0.txt
!file1.txt

In a case where you interested in file0.txt and file1.txt.

answered May 15 '11 at 21:57

tamasd

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This will however not work for nested paths, for which you'll have to use [the `!*/` trick](http://stackoverflow.com/a/9227991/321973) – Tobias Kienzler Oct 09 '12 at 06:49

opposite of .gitignore file?

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