.gitignore for directories at a specific depth?

Question

I have directories at components/root/js/ and components/example/js/ , and I don't want these to be tracked by Git.

However, I have a directory components/root/js2/plugins/js/ , which I want to have tracked by Git.

I've looked up on this online and only found ** , which I believe does not solve my problem.

My current .gitconfig contains the line:

js/

I've tried changing this to:

components/**/js/

But this matches for components/root/js/ , components/example/js/ , but also components/root/js2/plugins/js/ (a js folder below the second level of components - I only want to ignore js folders at the second level).

How can I achieve this goal?

Answer 1

OK, how about this:

js/
!components/root/js2/plugins/js/

It will ignore all directories called js except for ones specified after ! . In such scenario git will ignore components/root/js/ but won't ignore components/root/js2/plugins/js/ .

** won't work because as it's said in man gitignore :

A trailing "**" matches everything inside. For example, "abc/**" matches all files inside directory "abc", relative to the location of the .gitignore file, with infinite depth.

Answer 2

You can put .gitigore files in any directory which will be a more reliable solution if the directories are moved later.

I would create 2 .gitignore files:

• One at the project root /.gitignore which excludes js

  js

• One in the plugins directory /components/root/js2/plugins/.gitignore which overrides root .gitignore

  !js

If the plugins directory will be moved later, eg to components/root/plugins the .gitignore will be moved too.

If you configure everything in the root .gitignore you must not forget to edit the root .gitignore if the directory is moved.