How can I tell Git to use a different gitignore file than “.gitignore”?

Question

I can tell Git where the Git repository is with --git-dir. I can tell Git where the working tree is with --work-tree. How do I tell Git where the g

Answer 1

".gitignore" seems to be hard-coded as a per-directory exclude file in git in most commands, taking precedence over all other ignore files.

However, I created a small patch for Git to overcome this limitation: https://gist.github.com/rev22/9954517

It adds the following configuration option:

core.ignoreperdir: Specify an alternative to '.gitignore' as a per-directory exclude-file. If this is not set, the default '.gitignore' is used. If this is empty, no per-directory exclude file is used.