Why is .gitignore not including a file prefixed by a !

Question

My .gitignore file reads as follows:

build/
glucosia.xcodeproj/
!glucosia.xcodeproj/project.pbxproj
core-plot/framework/build
core-plot/framework/CorePlot-CocoaTouch.xcodeproj/
!core-plot/framework/CorePlot-CocoaTouch.xcodeproj/project.pbxproj
.DS_Store
Classes/.DS_Store

Strangely, glucosia.xcodeproj/project.pbxproj is not ignored, as I would expect.

But, core-plot/framework/CorePlot-CocoaTouch.xcodeproj/project.pbxproj is still being ignored.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

Answer 1

As mentioned in the gitignore man page:

A gitignore file specifies intentionally untracked files that git should ignore

If glucosia.xcodeproj/project.pbxproj (as suggested by Alan in the comments) is already tracked, you need to remove it from the cache, and then the gitingore directive will take effect.

git rm --cached glucosia.xcodeproj/project.pbxproj

If the file was already committed, see this SO answer (git commit --amend to remove it from the latest commit)

Answer 2

I had the same problem, but a different solution. If you ignore a directory but not a file within it, it will not work. You have to ignore a directory's files.

This doesn't work:

conf/
!conf/config.json.orig

This will work:

conf/*
!conf/config.json.orig