.gitignore and Visual Studio project: Ignore bin/D

Question

I have a C# Visual Studio project in a git repository. I want to ignore the contents bin/Debug directory but not the contents of the bin/Release' directory. I've added bin/Debug to my .gitignore file, but it doesn't seem to work - it is including the entire contents of the bin directory. What would the correct entry be to do this?

Answer 1

This may be slightly off topic, but whenever starting to create a new project, I usually use GitIgnore.IO for creating my initial gitignore file and then I tweek it from there according to my needs.

Answer 2

Running the following command worked for me (thanks to "orourkedd"):

git rm -r . --cached

I manually added the .gitignore file but it wasn't taken into consideration until I ran this command.

I then had to commit again and all good to go now. /bin and /obj folders are properly excluded now.

Answer 3

You shouldn't have to delete anything. After you added the .gitignore file, run this command to clear the cache, then stage and commit again:

git rm -r . --cached

Answer 4

This typically happens because the .gitignore was added after the files were committed. The .gitignore tells git to ignore untracked files that match, once stuff is committed the ignore will no longer work. One way to fix it is to remove the bin/debug folder (manually through explorer/powershell/bash), then commit the removals. Once that is done the ignores should work as you expect.

1. Remove files/folder
2. git add -A
3. git commit

Answer 5

Here's what we've been using lately, it removes all resharper generated stuff and some other important things. Note that we don't commit our release directory, so you shouldn't include Release/ in your .gitignore, but to answer your question, you should include Debug/.

/build/
*.suo
*.user
_ReSharper.*/
*.sdf
bin/
obj/
Debug/
Release/
*.opensdf
*.tlog
*.log
TestResult.xml
*.VisualState.xml
Version.cs
Version.h
Version.cpp

UPDATE

Here's a pretty comprehensive example from github:

• https://github.com/github/gitignore
• https://github.com/github/gitignore/blob/master/VisualStudio.gitignore

Answer 6

I fixed this by replacing bin/Debug with Debug.

This would also have the affect of ignoring the obj/Debug directory, however I want to ignore the entire contents of the obj directory, so I have also added obj to .gitignore.