.gitignore exclude directories under directory, but not top-level files

Question

I have a folder populated with both files (mostly archives) and non-specific sub-directories (their expansion) and want to ignore the extracted files. Files always extract to a sub-directory.

What should I add to my .gitignore ?

Answer 1

Following this question and its accepted answer , this snippet added to a .gitignore file within the directory in question will do:

*
!/*
*~

This ignores everything recursively from this directory, but not the files contained directly in it, except for files ending in ~ (emacs backups).