Re: [RFC/PATCH] git-add: Don't exclude explicitly-specified tracked files

[Greg Brockman <gdb@MIT.EDU>]

>> First of all, as you point out 'git add foo.pdf' works where foo.pdf
>> has been explicitly ignored, while in contrast 'git add dir/file'
>> fails when file has only been indirectly ignored because it is in an
>> ignored directory.  In the former case, the user explicitly specified
>> a policy for that file.  In the later case, the policy is only
>> indirectly expressed because that file happens to be in an ignored
>> directory.
>
> Sorry, but I don't get this argument.  When the user says "everything in
> this directory is ignored", why does it make it less direct than "this
> particular file is ignored"?
In general, I view the presence of a dir entry in a .gitignore as the
user setting a default policy for files in that directory, but the
user might actually mean for there to be some exceptions to that
policy.

For example, in my personal usage, when I ignore a directory but track
some files within it, this is because I don't want to specify an
ignore for every single other file in that directory.  Also note that
negated .gitignore entries don't seem to work in this case, i.e. a
.gitignore with contents
dir
!dir/file
won't actually let file be addable again.

In contrast, when I add dir/file to a .gitignore, there is no doubt
that I want to ignore that particular file.

Does that make more sense?

Greg