pathspec.c | 20 +++++++++++++++-----
 1 file changed, 15 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)

diff --git a/pathspec.c b/pathspec.c
index 7ababb315..2a91247bc 100644
--- a/pathspec.c
+++ b/pathspec.c
@@ -224,6 +224,12 @@ static const char *parse_short_magic(unsigned *magic, const char *elem)
 		char ch = *pos;
 		int i;
 
+		// Special case alias for '!'
+		if (ch == '^') {
+			*magic |= PATHSPEC_EXCLUDE;
+			continue;
+		}
+
 		if (!is_pathspec_magic(ch))
 			break;
 
@@ -516,7 +522,7 @@ void parse_pathspec(struct pathspec *pathspec,
 	}
 
 	pathspec->nr = n;
-	ALLOC_ARRAY(pathspec->items, n);
+	ALLOC_ARRAY(pathspec->items, n+1);
 	item = pathspec->items;
 	prefixlen = prefix ? strlen(prefix) : 0;
 
@@ -540,10 +546,14 @@ void parse_pathspec(struct pathspec *pathspec,
 		pathspec->magic |= item[i].magic;
 	}
 
-	if (nr_exclude == n)
-		die(_("There is nothing to exclude from by :(exclude) patterns.\n"
-		      "Perhaps you forgot to add either ':/' or '.' ?"));
-
+	/*
+	 * If everything is an exclude pattern, add one positive pattern
+	 * that matches everyting. We allocated an extra one for this.
+	 */
+	if (nr_exclude == n) {
+		init_pathspec_item(item + n, 0, "", 0, "");
+		pathspec->nr++;
+	}
 
 	if (pathspec->magic & PATHSPEC_MAXDEPTH) {
 		if (flags & PATHSPEC_KEEP_ORDER)