# ignore all .a files *.a # but do track lib.a, even though you're ignoring .a files above !lib.a # only ignore the TODO file in the current directory, not subdir/TODO /TODO # ignore all files in any directory named build build/ # ignore doc/notes.txt, but not doc/server/arch.txt doc/*.txt # ignore all .pdf files in the doc/ directory and any of its subdirectories doc/**/*.pdf