Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Welcome to Software Development on Codidact!

Will you help us build our independent community of developers helping developers? We're small and trying to grow. We welcome questions about all aspects of software development, from design to code to QA and more. Got questions? Got answers? Got code you'd like someone to review? Please join us.

Post History

80%
+6 −0
Q&A How to configure .gitignore to ignore all files except a certain directory

From the docs Example to exclude everything except a specific directory foo/bar (note the /* - without the slash, the wildcard would also exclude everything within foo/bar): $ cat .gitignore...

posted 2y ago by Moshi‭  ·  edited 2y ago by Moshi‭

Answer
#2: Post edited by user avatar Moshi‭ · 2022-07-16T01:38:18Z (almost 2 years ago)
  • From [the docs](https://git-scm.com/docs/gitignore)
  • >Example to exclude everything except a specific directory `foo/bar` (note the `/*` - without the slash, the wildcard would also exclude everything within `foo/bar`):
  • >```
  • > $ cat .gitignore
  • > # exclude everything except directory foo/bar
  • > /*
  • > !/foo
  • > /foo/*
  • > !/foo/bar
  • >```
  • Just do
  • ```
  • /*
  • !/dir
  • ```
  • From [the docs](https://git-scm.com/docs/gitignore)
  • >Example to exclude everything except a specific directory `foo/bar` (note the `/*` - without the slash, the wildcard would also exclude everything within `foo/bar`):
  • >```
  • > $ cat .gitignore
  • > # exclude everything except directory foo/bar
  • > /*
  • > !/foo
  • > /foo/*
  • > !/foo/bar
  • >```
  • Just do
  • ```
  • /*
  • !/dir
  • ```
  • ## Why this works (and yours doesn't)
  • When you exclude `*`, you end up excluding *everything*, directories and files alike. When you un-exclude `dir`, *the files inside aren't un-excluded as well*. This is why it doesn't appear to do anything. You can actually fix this by first un-excluding `dir` and then un-excluding everything in it like this:
  • ```
  • *
  • !/dir
  • !/dir/**/*
  • ```
  • By using `/*` though, it doesn't exclude everything, but only the top-level stuff. The files inside technically weren't excluded, but as long as the directory the files are in is excluded, the files won't be included.
  • Therefore, when you un-exclude `dir`, the files within (which hadn't been excluded) are included without a problem.
#1: Initial revision by user avatar Moshi‭ · 2022-07-15T22:56:04Z (almost 2 years ago)
From [the docs](https://git-scm.com/docs/gitignore)

>Example to exclude everything except a specific directory `foo/bar` (note the `/*` - without the slash, the wildcard would also exclude everything within `foo/bar`):
>```
>    $ cat .gitignore
>    # exclude everything except directory foo/bar
>    /*
>    !/foo
>    /foo/*
>    !/foo/bar
>```

Just do

```
/*
!/dir
```