It seems a straightforward one, but having researched multiple ways to do it, I can't gitignore a folder within a directory.
I have a root directory which contains all of my code in it. Because it has some back-end NodeJS stuff in it, it has a 'node_modules' folder which contains hundreds of files. As a result, when I try to upload the entire parent folder, GitHub says there's too many files to upload and tells me to reduce the number I'm uploading.
The crucial part is though, the folder has to be uploaded as a whole, as it itself is within a GitHub repository with other files with different folders in.
That means when I go onto my repository, I need this folder's files to display within the folder, and not separately within the repository. I need all of the files to be within this folder, within the parent repository, excluding the node_modules folder.
For example ->
Parent repository -> Child Directory (what I'm uploading) -> Individual files
I've tried to add the node_modules folder to my gitignore through the following methods:
Adding: node_modules/ to my gitignore file
Writing: echo node_modules >> .gitignore through my terminal
Adding a separate gitignore file within my node_modules file with a * in it
None of them have worked and I can't find any other solutions. For reference I'm using a Mac.
Does anyone have any idea what I'm doing wrong, or how it'd be best to do it?
By default, you do not need to include the node_modules folder in your repositories because the package.json file contains all of your project's dependency information. This means that anyone who clones your repository can run npm install and have the entire node_modules folder without problems.
To solve this you can create your own .gitignore file, creating a new file at the root of your project and renaming it to .gitignore (writing exactly that way). Then you can open it with any text editor and add */node_modules to one of the lines.
This will likely solve your problem.
This is my .gitignore file:
HELP.md
tmp/
target/
!**/src/main/**
!**/src/test/**
How can I exclude only this file:
src/main/resources/application.properties
Thank you
It should be fairly easy:
HELP.md
tmp/
target/
!**/src/main/**
!**/src/test/**
src/main/resources/application.properties
should work.
In case it doesn't, as it appears to be your case1, git allows you to ignore files, but remember this is a local setting and it will not be pushed to any other repository: go to .git/info/exclude and edit the file. It works like .gitignore.
Also remember: .gitignore has an higher priority on your info/exclude (source).
1. this might be due to the fact that you have multiple .gitignore files in your directory, and thus there is overmatching of patterns.
I have a requirement in my project where I need to ignore the .html file to track via git in the project however need to track any .html file in a given folder along with its sub folder.
I tried using below code to exclude to track all files from ignore_directory but it didn't worked.
*.html
!ignore_directory/*
What you have is the correct way to exclude a directory.
# See http://help.github.com/ignore-files/ for more about ignoring files.
#
# If you find yourself ignoring temporary files generated by your text editor or
# operating system, you probably want to add a global ignore instead:
# git config --global core.excludesfile ~/.gitignore_global
*.html
!ignore_directory/*
Either the path you have is incorrect or is not relative to the directory you want to exclude. It's also possible that the directory you want to exclude contains a gitignore file overriding your exclusion.
Read GitHub help on Ignoring files for a simple introduction to ignoring files and also tead the Git - gitignore documentation.
I have a directory structure like this:
.git/
.gitignore
main/
...
tools/
...
...
Inside main and tools, and any other directory, at any level, there can be a 'bin' directory, which I want to ignore (and I want to ignore everything under it too). I've tried each of these patterns in .gitignore but none of them work:
/**/bin/**/*
/./**/bin/**/*
./**/bin/**/*
**/bin/**/*
*/bin/**/*
bin/**/*
/**/bin/* #and the others with just * at the end too
Can anyone help me out? The first pattern (the one I think should be working) works just fine if I do this:
/main/**/bin/**/*
But I don't want to have an entry for every top-level directory and I don't want to have to modify .gitignore every time I add a new one.
This is on Windows using the latest msysgit.
EDIT: one more thing, there are files and directories that have the substring 'bin' in their names, I don't want those to be ignored :)
Before version 1.8.2, ** didn't have any special meaning in the .gitignore. As of 1.8.2 git supports ** to mean zero or more sub-directories (see release notes).
The way to ignore all directories called bin anywhere below the current level in a directory tree is with a .gitignore file with the pattern:
bin/
In the man page, there an example of ignoring a directory called foo using an analogous pattern.
Edit:
If you already have any bin folders in your git index which you no longer wish to track then you need to remove them explicitly. Git won't stop tracking paths that are already being tracked just because they now match a new .gitignore pattern. Execute a folder remove (rm) from index only (--cached) recursivelly (-r). Command line example for root bin folder:
git rm -r --cached bin
The .gitignore of your dream seems to be:
bin/
on the top level.
I think it is worth to mention for git beginners:
If you already have a file checked in, and you want to ignore it, Git
will not ignore the file if you add a rule later. In those cases, you
must untrack the file first, by running the following command in your
terminal:
git rm --cached
So if you want add to ignore some directories in your local repository (which already exist) after editing .gitignore you want to run this on your root dir
git rm --cached -r .
git add .
It will basically 'refresh' your local repo and unstage ignored files.
See:
http://git-scm.com/docs/git-rm,
https://help.github.com/articles/ignoring-files/
The ** never properly worked before, but since git 1.8.2 (March, 8th 2013), it seems to be explicitly mentioned and supported:
The patterns in .gitignore and .gitattributes files can have **/, as a pattern that matches 0 or more levels of subdirectory.
E.g. "foo/**/bar" matches "bar" in "foo" itself or in a subdirectory of "foo".
In your case, that means this line might now be supported:
/main/**/bin/
[Bb]in/
matches both upper and lower case
I didn't see it mentioned here, but this appears to be case sensitive. Once I changed to /Bin the files were ignored as expected.
Step 1: Add following content to the file .gitignore.
# User-specific files
*.suo
*.user
*.userosscache
*.sln.docstates
# Build results
[Dd]ebug/
[Dd]ebugPublic/
[Rr]elease/
[Rr]eleases/
x64/
x86/
bld/
[Bb]in/
[Oo]bj/
# Visual Studio 2015 cache/options directory
.vs/
Step 2: Make sure take effect
If the issue still exists, that's because settings in .gitignore can only ignore files that were originally not tracked. If some files have already been included in the version control system, then modifying .gitignore is invalid.
To solve this issue completely, you need to open Git Bash or Package Manager Console (see screenshot below) to run following commands in the repository root folder.
git rm -r --cached .
git add .
git commit -m "Update .gitignore"
Then the issue will be completely solved.
[Bb]in will solve the problem, but...
Here a more extensive list of things you should ignore (sample list by GitExtension):
#ignore thumbnails created by windows
Thumbs.db
#Ignore files build by Visual Studio
*.user
*.aps
*.pch
*.vspscc
*_i.c
*_p.c
*.ncb
*.suo
*.bak
*.cache
*.ilk
*.log
[Bb]in
[Dd]ebug*/
*.sbr
obj/
[Rr]elease*/
_ReSharper*/
If you're looking for a great global .gitignore file for any Visual Studio ( .NET ) solution - I recommend you to use this one: https://github.com/github/gitignore/blob/master/VisualStudio.gitignore
AFAIK it has the most comprehensive .gitignore for .NET projects.
Literally none of the answers actually worked for me; the only one that worked for me was (on Linux):
**/bin
(yes without the / in the end)
git version 2.18.0
for 2.13.3 and onwards,writing just bin in your .gitignore file should ignore the bin and all its subdirectories and files
bin
As a notice;
If you think about .gitignore does not work in a way (so added foo/* folder in it but git status still showing that folder content(s) as modified or something like this), then you can use this command;
git checkout -- foo/*
Adding **/bin/ to the .gitignore file did the trick for me (Note: bin folder wasn't added to index).
In addition to #CB Bailey's answer:
I tried to remove multiple folders (in subfolders) named et-cache (caching folder from Wordpress divi theme) from the index and from being tracked.
I added
et-cache/
to the .gitignore file. But
git rm -r --cached et-cache
resulted in an error:
fatal: pathspec 'et-cache' did not match any files
So the solution was to use powershell:
Get-ChildItem et-cache -Recurse |% {git rm -r --cached $_.FullName}
This searches for all subfolders named et-cache. Each of the folders path (fullname) is then used to remove it from tracking in git.
If the pattern inside .gitignore ends with a slash /, it will only find a match with a directory.
In other words, bin/ will match a directory bin and paths underneath it, but will not match a regular file or a symbolic link bin.
If the pattern does not contain a slash, like in bin Git treats it as a shell glob pattern (greedy). So best would be to use simple /bin.
bin would not be the best solution for this particular problem.
In my case encoding of gitignore file was problematic, check if it is UTF-8
I'm using Github Desktop on Windows 10. I have a .gitignore file with which I'd like to ignore everything in the directory, including all subdirectories.
What's frustrating is that most files are excluded, but I'm still getting a few random files that I cannot seem to ignore.
I have a directory, say, My Dir/Sub-dir, I want to ignore. I also want to ignore all files of extension, say, *.swf. Thus, I write this .gitignore file:
My Dir/Sub-dir
*.swf
But, when I go back to Github Desktop, I still get two files similar to the following in the list:
My Dir/Sub-dir/anotherdir/randomfile.xml
My Dir/Sub-dir/animation.swf
What's going on? Is this a bug? Or am I missing something?
EDIT:
Other alternative .gitignores I've tried are:
My*Dir/Sub-dir
*.swf
My\ Dir/Sub-dir
*.swf
My Dir/Sub-dir/
*.swf
/My Dir/Sub-dir
*.swf
EDIT:
So, I've tried the git rm --cached <file> command on my files, and it worked - until one of the files changes again. Github Desktop then once again says they need to be updated.
p.s. It may be that they somehow got indexed in the master branch, as I'm currently in a different branch. Would this cause it? And, if so, how would I eliminate these files from all branches?
To ignore all trees under specific directories, append the trailing slash to the directory:
# Ignore directory at all levels, even if the directory is nested under other directories
My Dir/Sub-dir/
# Ignore the directory only if it exists at the root of your repository
/My Dir/Sub-dir/
# Ignore the sub-directory, no matter where it appears within your repository
Sub-dir/
# Ignore all swf files
*.swf
If you are continuing to experience difficulties, your problem may be that the files you wish to ignore are already indexed by git (via the git add command). If the files are not committed yet, you can remove them from the index with git reset -- 'My Dir/Sub-dir/'. If your files have been committed, you can remove them from the index with git rm --cached <file>.
I guess the whitespace could be a problem. Try
My\ Dir/Sub-dir
or
My*Dir/Sub-dir
This could be a good reference .gitignore entire directory with whitespace in name