Exceptions in .gitignore

Question

How to add an exception to .gitignore, like "ignore all the .dll files BUT myfile.dll"?

Answer 1

Use ! to negate the pattern:

*.dll
!myfile.dll

Answer 2

If you want to ignore whole folder, except some specific files, then write:

MyFolder/*
!MyFolder/CoolFile.txt

This won't work:

MyFolder/
!MyFolder/CoolFile.txt

Answer 3

You can also ignore folders like

!src/main/resources/archetype-resources/**/*

you can also ignore nested folder with patterns like

!**/src/test/resources/**/*

Answer 4

You can have several .gitignore files working together in a hierarchical manner to achieve your goal. At the root level you may have:

root

*.dll

inside the folder having the myfile.dll you can add another .gitignore file like so:

root/lib/folderwithMyFiledll

!myfile.dll

more info here

An optional prefix "!" which negates the pattern; any matching file excluded by a previous pattern will become included again. Put a backslash ("\") in front of the first "!" for patterns that begin with a literal "!", for example, "!important!.txt". It is possible to re-include a file if a parent directory of that file is excluded if certain conditions are met. See section NOTES for detail.