.gitignore is ignored by Git

Question

My .gitignore file seems to be being ignored by Git - could the .gitignore file be corrupt? Which file format, locale or culture does Git expect?

Answer 1

I had this problem, with a .gitignore file containing this line:

lib/ext/

I just realized that in fact, this directory is a symbolic link to a folder somewhere else:

ls -la lib/ext/
lrwxr-xr-x 1 roipoussiere users 47 Feb  6 14:16 lib/ext -> /home/roipoussiere/real/path/to/the/lib

On the line lib/ext/, Git actually looks for a folder, but a symbolic link is a file, so my lib folder is not ignored.

I fixed this by replacing lib/ext/ by lib/ext in my .gitignore file.