Can you have multiple .gitignore files in one repo?

Question

Can you create a .gitignore file in a directory that applies only to files (and directories) in that directory?

Answer 1

Yes, you can. Try it, everything will be fine. Put a .gitignore at the root of your repo and add another .gitignore with extra things to ignore in the subdirectory.

Answer 2

Related questions: Are a few `.gitignore` frowned? (July 2010)

Or, if you may have a different version of the .gitignore file for each branch: Using github to host public git repositories, ensuring that sensitive data files are left without a trace (February 2010)

Further, possibly related: How do I tell git to always choose my local version for conflicting merges in a specific file?

Answer 3

You can simply specify files to ignore in a format like

 Xyz/*.abc 

in .gitignore in the root directory, potentially removing the need for separate files to ignore.