git ignore exception not working as desired

Question

WinXP + mysisGit1.7

In my .gitignore file, but still can't see Demos/path/to/file/file.cpp being tracked by git.

I have below entries:

Demos/
!Demos/path/to/file/file.cpp

The absolute path is: c:\Project\Demos\path\to\file\file.cpp

What could be wrong? Please help, thanks.

EDIT:

I found the way how mysisGit .gitignore work on WindowsXP can only ignore certain type of file, then exclude some files with same type. For example:

*.bak
!tracking.bak
!/path/to/file/tracking2.bak

It doesn't work ignore folder and exclude some files under that folder. Below won't work:

/folderUnderRepoRoot/
!/folderUnderRepoRoot/tracking.cpp

Nor

anyFolderNamedLikeThis/
!anyFolderNamedLikeThis/tracking.cpp
!/anyFolderNamedLikeThis/tracking.cpp

However, I do find that there's an exception. There's a work-around way to exclude files just right under the ignored folder (not to its subfolder). This works.

/folderUnderRepoRoot/*
/folderUnderRepoRoot/tracking.cpp

But this way is only limited when the file is not in any subfolder, so it's not so useful.

So I end up still commit most of source files, even I was only interested in a few files while tracking some others big project. Which means there're a bunch of files I won't touch but still need to commit them.

Here is another thread that had similar problem.

Answer 1

Your .gitignore exception does not work because "It is not possible to re-include a file if a parent directory of that file is excluded" (source). This is "a performance related quirk in Git" (source).

As an ugly-but-functional workaround, do this for every directory in the path to your file:

1. Exclude the contents of the directory.
2. Re-include the sub-directory leading to your file (resp. finally, re-include your file).

Your entries would look like this, with each two-line section corresponding to the two steps above for one directory level:

Demos/*
!Demos/path/

Demos/path/*
!Demos/path/to/

Demos/path/to/*
!Demos/path/to/file/

Demos/path/to/file/*
!Demos/path/to/file/file.cpp

Notes:

The first line is not Demos/, unlike what the question author tried. Demos is a parent directory of our file, so we would have to re-include it right afterwards – means, we do not have to exclude it in the first place. Instead, we start by excluding only its contents: Demos/*.

Answer 2

Do add to .gitignore as follows:

folderUnderRepoRoot/**/*
!folderUnderRepoRoot/tracking.cpp

But make sure, that at least a one file added to git index from the folderUnderRepoRoot folder.

Answer 3

If it's just one file, I wouldn't normally modify .gitignore

The following should ignore .gitignore and allow you to add the file

git add -f Demos/path/to/file/file.cpp