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Git Ignore and .gitignore

Git Ignore

When sharing your code with others, there are often files or parts of your project, you do not want to share.

Examples

• log files
• temporary files
• hidden files
• personal files
• etc.

Git can specify which files or parts of your project should be ignored by Git using a .gitignore file.

Git will not track files and folders specified in .gitignore. However, the .gitignore file itself IS tracked by Git.

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Create .gitignore

To create a .gitignore file, go to the root of your local Git, and create it:

Now open the file using a text editor.

We are just going to add two simple rules:

• Ignore any files with the .log extension
• Ignore everything in any directory named temp

Now all .log files and anything in temp folders will be ignored by Git.

Note: In this case, we use a single .gitignore which applies to the entire repository.
It is also possible to have additional .gitignore files in subdirectories. These only apply to files or folders within that directory.

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Local and Personal Git Ignore Rules

It is also possible to ignore files or folders but not show it in the distubuted .gitignore file.

These kinds of ignores are specified in the .git/info/exclude file. It works the same way as .gitignore but are not shown to anyone else.