git - What does !*/ mean in .gitignore

Question

With git version 1.7.1, I'm trying to exclude all files except .php files.

The working solution I found relies on the command !*/

# Ignore Everything
*

# Except these files
!.gitignore
!*/
!*.php

Without the !*/, it will only include the *.php files in the root directory. What is !*/ doing that allows this to work?

Answer 1

Take a look at the documentation of gitignore

An optional prefix "!" which negates the pattern; any matching file excluded by a previous pattern will become included again. It is not possible to re-include a file if a parent directory of that file is excluded. Git doesn’t list excluded directories for performance reasons, so any patterns on contained files have no effect, no matter where they are defined. Put a backslash ("") in front of the first "!" for patterns that begin with a literal "!", for example, "!important!.txt".