git - ignore files based on mode

Question

I want to ignore executable files that do not have an extension

For example:

gcc -o foo foo.c

I know I could add 'foo' to my .gitignore file, but if I decide to change the name of the executable I would need to update my .gitignore file...

Answer 1

I usually handle this using makefile hacks. In my Makefile i have the name of the executable $(name) and then I do this:

#first rule
all: gitignoreadd ... more depends
    ... some commands ...

gitignoreadd:
    grep -v "$(name)" .gitignore > temp
    echo $(name) >> temp
    mv temp .gitignore

gitignoreremove:
    grep -v "$(name)" .gitignore > temp
    mv temp .gitignore

That rule can then just be a dependency of the make somewhere appropriate. Then you usually have a 'make clean' rule as follows:

clean: gitignoreremove
   rm *.o *.othergarbagefiles $(name)

This should do the trick. It's a hack but it works for me. The only thing is that you must run make clean before changing the name to automatically clean everything up.