Gitignore all folders beginning with a period

Question

I want to use a .gitignore file to ignore all folders beginning with a period (hidden folders of linux).

I can't figure out the syntax, though I'm sure it's simple.

How's it done?

Solution 1

Use one of these patterns:

# ignore all . files but include . folders
.*
!.*/

---

# ignore all . files and . folders
.*

# Dont ignore .gitignore (this file)
# This is just for verbosity, you can leave it out if
# .gitignore is already tracked or if you use -f to
# force-add it if you just created it
!/.gitignore

---

# ignore all . folders but include . files
.*/

---

What is this pattern?

.* - This patter tells git to ignore all the files which starts with .

! - This tells git not to ignore the pattern. In your case /.gitignore

A demo can be found in this answer:
Git: how to ignore hidden files / dot files / files with empty file names via .gitignore?

Solution 2

.*/ will match everything that starts with a dot and is a folder

With the following command you can test it: mkdir test && cd test && git init && mkdir -p .foo .foo/.bar foo/.bar && touch .foo/dummy .foo/.bar/dummy foo/.bar/dummy && git add . && git status && echo '.*/'>.gitignore && git reset && git add . && git status

Solution 3

You should be able to use the double asterisk wildcard, which represents directories at any depth.

.**/

Comments

[Vampire]

It is not a duplicate of that question as here only dot-folders are wanted, not also dot-files.

[yu yang Jian]

I need to commit new gitignore file first to make it take effect

[Vampire]

Including .gitignore explicitly is probably descriptive, but unnecessary if .gitignore is already tracked, or added with -f. :-) Besides that, it does not answer the question as OP just asked for folders, not files

[Vampire]

Shouldn't .*/ be enough? Should work afair. Update: yes, it is

[CodeWizard]

You are right, i missed the folders. it should be ** for folders :-)

[Vampire]

No. he wanted only folders and your second thing does the same as the first. .* will match anything starting with a dot (files and folders), .*/ will match anything starting with a dot that is a folder

[CodeWizard]

I know, i showed him the patterns, he can grab what he need. i agree

[Vampire]

Well, he can not. As he accepted I guess he didn't mean what he said. But your answer is plainly wrong. .* does not ignore all dot-files, but dot-files and dot-folders and .** should be the same. Ignoring only the dot-folders would still be .*/. :-)

[CodeWizard]

Ok. feel free to update the answer if in wrong. Thank you

[eddiemoya]

It would be if he only wants the first level of directories to be ignored. He said "any" though. This would include directories at directory depth.

[Vampire]

Try the following command and you will see it works fine: mkdir test && cd test && git init && mkdir -p .foo .foo/.bar foo/.bar && touch .foo/dummy .foo/.bar/dummy foo/.bar/dummy && git add . && git status && echo '.*/'>.gitignore && git reset && git add . && git status

[Royi]

Could you give an example? Let's say I have folder named IgnoreMe and it appears with the same name in various places and depths in the repository. How could I ignore its content?