doc/hgignore.5.txt

HGIGNORE(5)
===========
Vadim Gelfer <[e-mail]>

NAME
----
hgignore - syntax for Mercurial ignore files

SYNOPSIS
--------

The Mercurial system uses a file called .hgignore in the root
directory of a repository to control its behavior when it finds files
that it is not currently managing.

DESCRIPTION
-----------

Mercurial ignores every unmanaged file that matches any pattern in an
ignore file.  The patterns in an ignore file do not apply to files
managed by Mercurial.  To control Mercurial's handling of files that
it manages, see the hg(1) man page.  Look for the "-I" and "-X"
options.

In addition, a Mercurial configuration file can point to a set of
per-user or global ignore files.  See the hgrc(5) man page for details
of how to configure these files.  Look for the "ignore" entry in the
"ui" section.

SYNTAX
------

An ignore file is a plain text file consisting of a list of patterns,
with one pattern per line.  Empty lines are skipped.  The "#"
character is treated as a comment character, and the "\" character is
treated as an escape character.

Mercurial supports several pattern syntaxes.  The default syntax used
is Python/Perl-style regular expressions.

To change the syntax used, use a line of the following form:

syntax: NAME

where NAME is one of the following:

regexp::
  Regular expression, Python/Perl syntax.
glob::
  Shell-style glob.

The chosen syntax stays in effect when parsing all patterns that
follow, until another syntax is selected.

Neither glob nor regexp patterns are rooted.  A glob-syntax pattern of
the form "*.c" will match a file ending in ".c" in any directory, and
a regexp pattern of the form "\.c$" will do the same.  To root a
regexp pattern, start it with "^".

EXAMPLE
-------

Here is an example ignore file.

  # use glob syntax.
  syntax: glob

  *.elc
  *.pyc
  *~
  .*.swp

  # switch to regexp syntax.
  syntax: regexp
  ^\.pc/

AUTHOR
------
Vadim Gelfer <[e-mail]>

Mercurial was written by Matt Mackall <[e-mail]>.

SEE ALSO
--------
hg(1), hgrc(5)

COPYING
-------
This manual page is copyright 2006 Vadim Gelfer.
Mercurial is copyright 2005-2007 Matt Mackall.
Free use of this software is granted under the terms of the GNU General
Public License (GPL).