Question

I keep running into a minor inconvenience that I would like to avoid. If I look at the set of all files I want git to ignore, I can break them into two basic groups:

1. Files that I need to keep on my file system to work on the project (IDE project metadata files, configuration files that are particular to my workstation, etc.)

2. Files that get generated that I don’t need and generally clutter up my file system when I add them to .gitignore. (compiled output, core dumps, etc.)

Ideally, I’d like git to ignore all these files so that when I’m looking at my unstaged changes I can get a clear view of the things I changed without a bunch of noise. If I add all those file to .gitignore I can get the clear picture of what I’ve changed when I do a git status. (this is the state I am in now)

However, I’d also like to be able to use git clean to blow away all the files in category 2 without removing all the files in category 1. If I only add the files in category 1, I can use git clean -x to remove all the untracked things. Unfortunately, that clutters up git status.

Alternatively, I can add all the files in category 2, but I end up having to manually remember not to add/commit my workstation-specific files. git status is pretty much continuously cluttered, but not quite as bad.

Is there a way I can get all three of these things in harmony:

1. Get an clear picture of the files I care about with git status
2. Remove all the files I don’t care about with git clean
3. Keep all the untracked files that I don’t want to share when I run git clean

Answer 1

Have a look at the fine details of the gitignore man page. It includes details about this case.

Choose the case you desire.

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Which file to place a pattern in depends on how the pattern is meant
to be used. Patterns which should be version-controlled and
distributed to other repositories via clone (i.e., files that all
developers will want to ignore) should go into a .gitignore file.

Patterns which are specific to a particular repository but which do
not need to be shared with other related repositories (e.g., auxiliary
files that live inside the repository but are specific to one user’s
workflow) should go into the $GIT_DIR/info/exclude file.

Patterns
which a user wants git to ignore in all situations (e.g., backup or
temporary files generated by the user’s editor of choice) generally go
into a file specified by core.excludesfile in the user’s
~/.gitconfig.