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gitgitignore

Ignore line in .gitignore

The .gitignore of a project (maintained by someone else) is like this:

.idea/*
!.idea/watcherTasks.xml

I want to add private watcher tasks, so my watcherTasks.xml is changed. But I don't want to commit it.

I don't want to type git reset .idea/watcherTasks.xml (or specify the paths) every time I git add/git commit. So I tried to use .git/info/exclude to ignore the file locally:

.idea/watcherTasks.xml

However, the .git/info/exclude line cannot override the .gitignore line (probably because ! has higher priority).

Is there something I can put in .git/info/exclude to cancel the effect of the !.idea/watcherTasks.xml line in .gitignore? I don't want to modify the .gitignore since I do not maintain the project.

This question does not ask for approaches like git commit $path, because I do not want to change future commit commands to use.

Solution

  • If your .idea/watcherTasks.xml is already tracked, you can:

    • modify it locally

    • make sure it remains not added/committed with 

      cd /root/folder/of/your/local/repository
git update-index --skip-worktree -- .idea/watcherTasks.xml

    That means:

    • no need to override an ignore rule
    • no need to modify a .gitignore

    Your tracked file remains tracked, but none of your local modification will be added or committed.