Search code examples
gitgitignore

gitignore rule to always include folders with a specific name

I have a root .gitignore file (Visual Studio) in my project root folder. In some subfolder's I have a folder named 3rdParty which contains folders like lib, debug and release with dll files in it.

enter image description here

I want to commit these to my GIT repo.

In my .gitignore on rootlevel the debug and release are excluded.

[Dd]ebug/
[Dd]ebugPublic/
[Rr]elease/
[Rr]eleases/

I have tried putting a .gitignore file in the several 3rdParty folders without the debug and release rule. 

#[Dd]ebug/
#[Dd]ebugPublic/
#[Rr]elease/
#[Rr]eleases/

But that didn't work. Is there a way I can set a ! rule in my root .gitignore so that all folders named 3rdParty on all levels are included?

Solution

  • The rule !**/3rdParty/** does the trick after all. I had the rule above:

    [Dd]ebug/
[Dd]ebugPublic/
[Rr]elease/
[Rr]eleases/

    When I placed the rule at the bottom of my .gitignore it works. I got the rule from: https://git-scm.com/docs/gitignore

    In this section:

    Two consecutive asterisks ("**") in patterns matched against full pathname may have special meaning:

    A leading "**" followed by a slash means match in all directories. For example, "**/foo" matches file or directory "foo" anywhere, the same as pattern "foo". "**/foo/bar" matches file or directory "bar" anywhere that is directly under directory "foo".