how to except files from be merged to other git branch?

Question

I have two branches: one for development and another for production, each one has its own config values in app.config file

what I want is to ignore these values whenever I merge or rebase these branches.

Answer 1

Then perhaps you best bet would be to not even version the app.config

Exactly, but you can still generate it, with a content filter driver, using .gitattributes declaration.

What you would version is a template file, and a file with all possible values per environment (per branch).

^{(image from "Customizing Git - Git Attributes", from "Pro Git book")}

The generated actual file remains ignored (by the .gitignore): your actual working tree does not get "dirty".

The smudge script:

• detect the right branch
• selects the correct value file and generates the correct file based on the template the smudge script is applied on during a git checkout.

That way, you modify the config.<branch> value file as much as you want: the config file (not versioned) will be generated from those values.
And it won't have any merge issue.