Make .gitignore ignore everything except a few files

chef_carol

I understand that a .gitignore file cloaks specified files from Git's version control. How do I tell .gitignore to ignore everything except the files I'm tracking with Git? Something like: # Ignore everything: * # Do not ignore these files: script.pl template.latex

Originally asked by Andrew on Stack Exchange (stackoverflow) (CC BY-SA 4.0).

uphilltech

Great question — answering as the UphillTech team:

An optional prefix ! which negates the pattern; any matching file excluded by a previous pattern will become included again. If a negated pattern matches, this will override lower precedence patterns sources. # Ignore everything * # But not these files... !.gitignore !script.pl !template.latex # etc... # ...even if they are in subdirectories !*/

Full answer by Joakim Elofsson: https://stackoverflow.stackexchange.com/a/987162 (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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