Ignore a specific file in resource directory

Question

This is my .gitignore file:

HELP.md
tmp/
target/
!**/src/main/**
!**/src/test/**

How can I exclude only this file:

src/main/resources/application.properties

Thank you

Answer 1

It should be fairly easy:

HELP.md
tmp/
target/
!**/src/main/**
!**/src/test/**
src/main/resources/application.properties

should work.

In case it doesn't, as it appears to be your case¹, git allows you to ignore files, but remember this is a local setting and it will not be pushed to any other repository: go to .git/info/exclude and edit the file. It works like .gitignore.

Also remember: .gitignore has an higher priority on your info/exclude (source).

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_{1. this might be due to the fact that you have multiple .gitignore files in your directory, and thus there is overmatching of patterns.}