Add a .gitignore to your repository#

The version control system git tracks all files in a repository.

Sometimes, you do not want certain files or directories to be tracked, but fully ignored by git. These files or directories can include binaries, images, dependencies, log files, or analysis results. Also, hidden system files are usually picked up by git.

The idea is to create a file named .gitignore that lists all the files and directories that should be ignored by git.

For instance, in order to ignore all log files with the suffix .log, the content of the .gitignore file should be:

*.log

A common example is to ignore system files as well, such as the .DS_Store file:

.DS_Store

Note: Sometimes, you might not see the hidden system files. You can do so by browsing to the directory in the terminal and typing:

$ ls -lash

Once the .gitignore file has been created, you can add and commit the file as any other file in the git-tracked repository. A relatively complete collection of .gitignore templates can be found here.

More information on the .gitignore mechanism can be found here.