git clean -ndX doesn't remove directory

Question

With .gitignore:

foo/

and a git repository of:

./quux
./quux/foo
./quux/foo/bar
./quux/foo/bar/baz

As foo is ignored, git assumes working directory is clean:

% git status
# On branch master
nothing to commit, working directory clean

The git clean -ndx prints:

% git clean -ndx
Would remove quux/

But git clean -ndX doesn't print anything. I would expect it to remove quux/ as well.

Is this a bug or a some gitignore feature I don’t get? If I add some file to quux and commit it. Than git clean will try to remove quux/foo/ as expected.

My git is pretty new: git version 1.8.3.4.

Answer 1

$ git init .
$ echo foo/ >.gitignore
$ git add .;git commit -am ignore
$ mkdir -p foo/bar bar/foo
$ touch foo/bar/1 bar/foo/1
$ git clean -ndx
Would remove bar/
Would remove foo/
$ git clean -ndX
Would remove foo/
$

git help clean says:

   -X
       Remove only files ignored by Git. This may be useful to rebuild
       everything from scratch, but keep manually created files.

This means it will not delete manual created stuff, unless it is explicitly ignored.

In this case the bar directory is manually created and not explicitly ignored, hence it will not be deleted.

The same is true for your quux directory.

To "fix" this you need to add the bar directory under control of git by adding a file:

$ touch bar/x
$ git add bar/x
$ git commit -am add\ x
$ git clean -ndX
Would remove bar/foo/
Would remove foo/
$