Subdirectories and Ignoring Files

Git can version control all files and subdirectorires within your working directory. Working with subdirectories is identical to working with files.

Move the HEAD to the latest commit of the master branch.

git checkout master

Now create a set of subdirectories and files using the commands

mkdir subdir
touch subdir/empty_file.md
mkdir subdir/pictures
touch subdir/pictures/empty_picture.png

This will create a subdirectory called subdir containing both an empty file (empty_file.md) and also another subdirectory called pictures (which itself contains an empty picture called empty_picture.png).

Now type git status. You should see something like

# On branch master
# Untracked files:
#   (use "git add <file>..." to include in what will be committed)
#
#   subdir/
nothing added to commit but untracked files present (use "git add" to track)

Git has seen that you have created a new directory called subdir. You can add subdir, and everything contained in subdir, using a normal git add command, e.g.

git add subdir

Now, git status should show something like

# On branch master
# Changes to be committed:
#   (use "git reset HEAD <file>..." to unstage)
#
#   new file:   subdir/empty_file.md
#   new file:   subdir/pictures/empty_picture.png
#

Git has automatically added subdir/empty_file.md, subdir/pictures and subdir/pictures/empty_picture.png. Note that Git doesn’t care whether or not the files are empty, and Git is happy to work with any type of file (e.g. text files, pictures, documents etc.)

Now, to commit the change use a standard git commit -a, remembering to add a good commit message, e.g.

git commit -a

Added in a subdirectory that will eventually contain
additional files, e.g. pictures. Added in placeholders
(empty files) that will need to be filled in later

# Please enter the commit message for your changes. Lines starting
# with '#' will be ignored, and an empty message aborts the commit.
# On branch master
# Changes to be committed:
#   (use "git reset HEAD <file>..." to unstage)
#
#   new file:   subdir/empty_file.md
#   new file:   subdir/pictures/empty_picture.png
#

Check that your working directory is now clean using git status.

Ignoring Files

Sometimes you don’t want to track the versions of certain files in Git. Examples could include output files from compilation e.g. the source.o files when compiling from source.cpp, or the module.pyc files from importing the python file module.py. To tell Git to ignore different files, you should add a .gitignore file in the working directory.

First, let us create files that we want to ignore. Type

touch source.o
touch subdir/module.pyc

Now type ls *. You should see the files

README.md  source.o

subdir:
empty_file.md  module.pyc  pictures

If you now type git status you should see something like

# On branch master
# Untracked files:
#   (use "git add <file>..." to include in what will be committed)
#
#   source.o
#   subdir/module.pyc
nothing added to commit but untracked files present (use "git add" to track)

To ignore source.o we have to create and edit a file called .gitignore. Open this file by typing

nano .gitignore

Into this file put the text

source.o

Save and exit from nano. Now type git status. You should now see something like

# On branch master
# Untracked files:
#   (use "git add <file>..." to include in what will be committed)
#
#   .gitignore
#   subdir/module.pyc
nothing added to commit but untracked files present (use "git add" to track)

You can see that source.o is no longer seen by Git.

It would be very laborious to write out the name of every file that you want Git to ignore. Fortunately, .gitignore supports the use of wildcards, just like the shell (e.g. *.o would match all files that end in .o). Edit .gitignore again and change it to read

*.o
*.pyc

Save the file and run git status again. You should see something like

# On branch master
# Untracked files:
#   (use "git add <file>..." to include in what will be committed)
#
#   .gitignore
nothing added to commit but untracked files present (use "git add" to track)

Now you can see that Git is ignoring both source.o and pictures/module.pyc. We can double check that the wildcard is working by creating more .o and .pyc files, e.g.

touch subdir/main.o
touch base.pyc
touch something.o
touch subdir/pictures/loader.pyc

Running git status should still show the output

# On branch master
# Untracked files:
#   (use "git add <file>..." to include in what will be committed)
#
#   .gitignore
nothing added to commit but untracked files present (use "git add" to track)

Note that the .gitignore file is not automatically added by Git. We still now need to git add the file and then commit it into the repository.

git add .gitignore
git commit -a

Make sure you add a suitable commit message, e.g.

Added in a .gitignore file to ensure that intermediate
compilation files (e.g. C++ object and Python pyc files)
are not added to the repository

# Please enter the commit message for your changes. Lines starting
# with '#' will be ignored, and an empty message aborts the commit.
# On branch master
# Changes to be committed:
#   (use "git reset HEAD <file>..." to unstage)
#
#   new file:   .gitignore
#

Now git status should show that your working directory is clean.

---

Exercise

Change back to the my-branch branch of your working directory using git checkout my-branch.

Use ls to see what has happened to the untracked files (those that are ignored by Git). Do they still exist or have they been removed? What has happened to subdir/empty_file.md and subdir/pictures/empty_picture.png? Why do you think this is the case?

Use ls -a to see what has happened to your .gitignore file. Is it still in your working directory? If not, why not?

Create a new .gitignore file that ignores all .o, .pyc and .png files. Add this file using git add .gitignore. What does git status now show?

Add back in the subdir/empty_file.md and subdir/pictures/empty_picture.png, e.g. by using

touch subdir/empty_file.md
touch subdir/pictures/empty_picture.png

What does git status now show?

Add the directory subdir to Git. What does git status now show? What will be committed to the repository when you run git commit -a. Does this make sense?

Finally, commit your changes using git commit -a, making sure you use a descriptive commit message. Use git status to check that your working directory is clean after the commit.

---

Previous Up Next