git/Documentation/git-check-ignore.txt
Dave Williams 8231fa6ae1 check-ignore: Add option to ignore index contents
check-ignore currently shows how .gitignore rules would treat untracked
paths. Tracked paths do not generate useful output.  This prevents
debugging of why a path became tracked unexpectedly unless that path is
first removed from the index with `git rm --cached <path>`.

The option --no-index tells the command to bypass the check for the
path being in the index and hence allows tracked paths to be checked
too.

Whilst this behaviour deviates from the characteristics of `git add` and
`git status` its use case is unlikely to cause any user confusion.

Test scripts are augmented to check this option against the standard
ignores to ensure correct behaviour.

Signed-off-by: Dave Williams <dave@opensourcesolutions.co.uk>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
2013-09-12 15:40:29 -07:00

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git-check-ignore(1)
===================
NAME
----
git-check-ignore - Debug gitignore / exclude files
SYNOPSIS
--------
[verse]
'git check-ignore' [options] pathname...
'git check-ignore' [options] --stdin < <list-of-paths>
DESCRIPTION
-----------
For each pathname given via the command-line or from a file via
`--stdin`, show the pattern from .gitignore (or other input files to
the exclude mechanism) that decides if the pathname is excluded or
included. Later patterns within a file take precedence over earlier
ones.
OPTIONS
-------
-q, --quiet::
Don't output anything, just set exit status. This is only
valid with a single pathname.
-v, --verbose::
Also output details about the matching pattern (if any)
for each given pathname.
--stdin::
Read file names from stdin instead of from the command-line.
-z::
The output format is modified to be machine-parseable (see
below). If `--stdin` is also given, input paths are separated
with a NUL character instead of a linefeed character.
-n, --non-matching::
Show given paths which don't match any pattern. This only
makes sense when `--verbose` is enabled, otherwise it would
not be possible to distinguish between paths which match a
pattern and those which don't.
--no-index::
Don't look in the index when undertaking the checks. This can
be used to debug why a path became tracked by e.g. `git add .`
and was not ignored by the rules as expected by the user or when
developing patterns including negation to match a path previously
added with `git add -f`.
OUTPUT
------
By default, any of the given pathnames which match an ignore pattern
will be output, one per line. If no pattern matches a given path,
nothing will be output for that path; this means that path will not be
ignored.
If `--verbose` is specified, the output is a series of lines of the form:
<source> <COLON> <linenum> <COLON> <pattern> <HT> <pathname>
<pathname> is the path of a file being queried, <pattern> is the
matching pattern, <source> is the pattern's source file, and <linenum>
is the line number of the pattern within that source. If the pattern
contained a `!` prefix or `/` suffix, it will be preserved in the
output. <source> will be an absolute path when referring to the file
configured by `core.excludesfile`, or relative to the repository root
when referring to `.git/info/exclude` or a per-directory exclude file.
If `-z` is specified, the pathnames in the output are delimited by the
null character; if `--verbose` is also specified then null characters
are also used instead of colons and hard tabs:
<source> <NULL> <linenum> <NULL> <pattern> <NULL> <pathname> <NULL>
If `-n` or `--non-matching` are specified, non-matching pathnames will
also be output, in which case all fields in each output record except
for <pathname> will be empty. This can be useful when running
non-interactively, so that files can be incrementally streamed to
STDIN of a long-running check-ignore process, and for each of these
files, STDOUT will indicate whether that file matched a pattern or
not. (Without this option, it would be impossible to tell whether the
absence of output for a given file meant that it didn't match any
pattern, or that the output hadn't been generated yet.)
Buffering happens as documented under the `GIT_FLUSH` option in
linkgit:git[1]. The caller is responsible for avoiding deadlocks
caused by overfilling an input buffer or reading from an empty output
buffer.
EXIT STATUS
-----------
0::
One or more of the provided paths is ignored.
1::
None of the provided paths are ignored.
128::
A fatal error was encountered.
SEE ALSO
--------
linkgit:gitignore[5]
linkgit:gitconfig[5]
linkgit:git-ls-files[1]
GIT
---
Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite