How do I add files without dots in them (all extension-less files) to the gitignore file?

Question

Like the title says, is it possible to add "files without dots in them" to the gitignore file?

I imagine this would take care of all those bothersome extensionless files.

Answer 1

You can try a combination similar to:

*
!/**/
!*.*

That gitignore exclusion rule (a negated pattern) should ignore all files, except the ones with an extension.

As mentioned below by Mad Physicist, the rule is:

It is not possible to re-include a file if a parent directory of that file is excluded. (*)
(*: unless certain conditions are met in git 2.?+, see below)

That is why !/**/ is important (white-listing the parent folders recursively) if we want to white-list files.

I mentioned that same rule in similar cases like:

• Gitignore all except one folder and all its content - regardless of the nesting level
• Git except a sub directory and it's files of a ignored directory
• Gitignore exclude certain files in all subdirectories

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As Jakub Narębski comments, you might not want to ignore all extensionless files.

My advice:

• add first the extensionless file that matters
• then edit your .gitignore as shown above: the already versioned files won't be ignored (even if they don't have an extension). All the others will be ignored.

For any future extensionless files that you would want to version:

git add -f -- myFile

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Note that with git 2.9.x/2.10 (mid 2016?), it might be possible to re-include a file if a parent directory of that file is excluded if there is no wildcard in the path re-included.

Nguyễn Thái Ngọc Duy (pclouds) is trying to add this feature:

• commit 506d8f1 for git v2.7.0, reverted in commit 76b620d git v2.8.0-rc0
• commit 5e57f9c git v2.8.0-rc0,... reverted(!) in commit 5cee3493 git 2.8.0-rc4.

However, since one of the rules to re-inclusion was:

The directory part in the re-include rules must be literal (i.e. no wildcards)

This wouldn't have worked here anyway.