Using .gitignore to ignore a full directory

Question

I have created a .gitignore file in the root directory of a project, and I would like to ignore an entire folder and anything that gets place within it.

My .gitgnore file contains only the following:

/dir/output/*

But everytime I add or modify files within the output directory the changes get tracked. Is there a way to do this?

Answer 1

You have to tell git to remove the cache before it starts "listening" to the new ignore. Make sure you commit your changes first and then do the following command:

git rm . -r --cached
git add .
git commit -m "what ever message"