.gitignore and git rm --cached wont keep files from being tracked

Question

I have an android project that has a test module that will remove and recreate .apk files in a subdirectory in the git directory.

I have added these to .gitignore (the directory, the files explicitly, and *.apk ) and then I have done

git rm -r --cached src/main/Tests/bin

and git tells me:

rm 'src/main/Tests/bin/Tests-debug-unaligned.apk'
rm 'src/main/Tests/bin/Tests-debug.apk'
rm 'src/main/Tests/bin/Tests.ap_'
rm 'src/main/Tests/bin/classes.dex'

i then

git commit . -m "removed apk files"

I run the tests again which delete the files and the recreate them. I run git status and they show up as modified. It seems .gitignore is not working. Here is my .gitignore file

*ipr
*iml
*iws
.gitignore
out/
*apk
src/main/Tests/bin
src/main/Tests/bin/*
src/main/Tests/bin/Tests-debug-unaligned.apk

Answer 1

I think you need to clean all your stagged files using:

git rm -r --cached .

git add -A

Then commit:

git commit -m ".gitignore"

But make sure you commit your changes before doing this.