I just ran across a gitignore file that ends with the line *~ but I have not been able to find a description of what this does.

It ignores all files whose name ends in <code>~</code>, which is a usual suffix for text editors backup files. <code>*</code> is a special symbol and means "any sequence of zero or more characters", while <code>~</code> is just an ordinary character. Putting the two parts together: "zero or more characters followed by a ~".

What does *~ do in a .gitignore file?

1 Answers

It ignores all files whose name ends in ~, which is a usual suffix for text editors backup files.

* is a special symbol and means "any sequence of zero or more characters", while ~ is just an ordinary character. Putting the two parts together: "zero or more characters followed by a ~".