Adding all "error_log" files to .gitignore

Question

I am getting frustrated with all my PHP error_log files causing merge conflicts with my production & dev servers with git. The solution is easy enough--adding all files that are called "error_log" to .gitignore--but I don't know how to do it. This is what I'm trying in my .gitignore:

error_log

Which is only excluding the error_log file in the root directory (instead of all the other dirs I have PHP running).

Would *error_log work?

Thanks!

Answer 1

Your .gitignore is absolutely correct, but .gitignore will only stop files from being added to the repository – already tracked files are not concerned by this. So, first you need to remove all the error_log files from the index by running:

git rm --cached '*/error_log' error_log

Now when you run git status some of your error_log files should be listed as “deleted”, but none of them should appear as untracked files.

Answer 2

You'll need to remove any error_log files that have been added (using git rm --cached *error_log), but, yes, adding the line "error_log" should do the trick. Or, if "error_log" is only the file suffix, then adding "*error_log", as you suggested, should be fine.