Stefan Beller <[email protected]> writes: > 2015-02-02 11:15 GMT-08:00 Junio C Hamano <[email protected]>: > >> Isn't gitignore(5) documentation reasonably clear? >> ... >> - A leading slash matches the beginning of the pathname. For >> example, "/*.c" matches "cat-file.c" but not "mozilla-sha1/sha1.c". >> >>> That's true, though you'd never (barely?) git version control an entire >>> file system? >> >> When you have the entire file system under /.git, "/var/" still >> would be the right way to spell a pattern to match ... >> ... and lives in the root level of the filesystem (because of the >> leading '/' anchors >> the pattern to the same level as the file the pattern appears in, >> i.e. /.gitignore) and no other place. > > ... Now I realize git treats the repository > root literally as the root and hence absolute paths starting with "/" > make totally sense inside git as the world stops for git outside its > work directory.
Only when the pattern appears in .gitignore at the top-level of the project, you can say: "/*.js" matches files with ".js" suffix at the root level of the project because '/' means 'root'. But that explanation breaks down for "t/.gitignore" that has entries like "/.prove". It is not excluding ".prove" at the top-level of the project. It is excluding those that appear at the same level as that ignore file in question lives in, i.e. the "t/" directory. It excludes "t/.prove", it excludes neither ".prove" at the top-level nor "t/tt/ttt/.prove". In hindsight, using '/' prefix as a way to anchor the patter to the same directory the .gitignore file appears in was suboptimal, exactly because it would invite the above reaction. But I do not know if using "./" as the prefix to denote the same thing would have been better. -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in the body of a message to [email protected] More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
