I have the following folder structure:
public
media
catalog
product
category
private
tmp
var
test
I want to gitignore everything in the media
directory except for catalog/category
and private
My gitignore I am trying is:
public/media/*
!public/media/catalog/category/
!public/media/private
But it doesn't work. Any new files added to the category
or private
directories are not available to add.
I could just git add force but I would like this done through the gitignore if possible
It's usually simplest to put just a .gitignore
at the level where it starts to matter. (This also helps if you ever split a repository or move directories around.) In this case you need to ignore everything except catalog
and private
in the public/media
folder so in public/media/.gitignore
put:
/*
!/catalog/
!/private/
and in public/media/catalog/.gitignore
put:
/*
!/category/
It's important (and the reason that your rules are not working) not to ignore the public/media/catalog
directory itself, as otherwise everything in it will be ignored, even if you didn't want to ignore a specific part of its contents.
Of course, you can combine this into a single ignore at the public/media
level if you like:
/*
!/catalog/
!/private/
/catalog/*
!/catalog/category/
Solution with one .gitignore at root level
You tried to use one .gitignore
file at the repository's root level. Like you, I usually also centralize all ignores like this to keep things tidy. In this case it is difficult though, because "It is not possible to re-include a file if a parent directory of that file is excluded" [source].
My ugly solution for this restriction, which I also explore in my related answers here and here: re-include all parent directories along the path before re-including your desired file, while keeping other files in these parent directories out by re-excluding them.
With that, your .gitignore
patterns would be:
public/media/**
!public/media/private
!public/media/catalog/
public/media/catalog/**
!public/media/catalog/category/