Resync git repo with new .gitignore file

Question

Is it possible to \"refresh\" a git repository after updating the gitignore file?

I just added more ignorations(?) to my gitignore and would like to remove stuff alr

Answer 1

I know this is an old question, but gracchus's solution doesn't work if file names contain spaces. VonC's solution to file names with spaces is to not remove them utilizing --ignore-unmatch, then remove them manually, but this will not work well if there are a lot.

Here is a solution that utilizes bash arrays to capture all files.

# Build bash array of the file names
while read -r file; do 
    rmlist+=( "$file" )
done < <(git ls-files -i --exclude-standard)

git rm –-cached "${rmlist[@]}"

git commit -m 'ignore update'