git ignoring .gitattributes pattern

Question

I\'ve a directory structure like this:

root/
  .git
  deploy/
  Site/
    blah/
    more_blah/
      something.local
      else.development
    Rakefile
             


        

Answer 1

Not sure this is common case but I had trouble excluding folder tests from source tree which have many nested levels of folders. If I wrote only this line to .gitattributes

tests/* export-ignore

It didnt work and entire directory was remain in archive. The solution was to add wildcards for all subdirs levels:

tests/* export-ignore
tests/*/* export-ignore
tests/*/*/* export-ignore
tests/*/*/*/* export-ignore
tests/*/*/*/*/* export-ignore

With these lines the tests directory finally disappeared from archive.