gitignore

Creating a .gitignore file in the root folder of your project will ensure every file that matches a line within the file will be ignored by git. It uses globs.

Using a * will work as a wildcard for every file within that level of the given directory, or as a wildcard within a filename.
Using two ** in the filepath will look within every level recursively from that point forward. e.g. **/.DS_Store will find a file called .DS_Store in the root directory as well as any others in any folders within that root directory. lib/**/__pycache__ will match any files or folders named __pycache__ that are within the lib directory at any depth.
Using a # at the beginning of your line is a comment. A hash will represent a comment anywhere but the beginning of the line. # a comment works but tags # a comment will look for a file named tags # a comment.

Global gitignore

You can ignore files globally by adding them to ~/.gitignore_global. You can also use a git template[3] and add an exclude file.

Delete previous files in gitignore

If you add a file to .gitignore after previously committing that file, you may see untracked changes on those files. You have to remove the old files from the git repository to remove that error.

Remove the existing files: find . -name {filename} -print0 | xargs -0 git rm -f --ignore-unmatch
Add the file to the gitignore: {filename}

References

Last modified: 202401290248