How to go back to previous directory in .gitignore

I use PhpStorm as my IDE and it sets up .gitignore file in a directory called .idea. There are folders and files that I want to ignore but I can't go to previous folder no matter what.

Lets have file called example.txt. The folder tree looks like this:

- /Project
  - /.idea
    - .gitignore
    - workspace.xml
  - /src
    - example.txt

How do I ignore example.txt file? I tried ../src/example.txt, src/example.txt, /../src/example.txt

Solution

.gitignore applies to a directory and its subdirectories. it does not apply to a sibling or parent directory.

to ignore the src/example.txt you could:

create a .gitignore file in the src/ directory, containing e.g.
```
example.txt
```
create a .gitignore file in the parent directory, containing e.g.
```
src/example.txt
```