Ignore renamed folder in git

Question

I have a folder let's say,

src/main/resources/basic_abc

For running my code locally, I need to rename it to

src/main/resources/basic

This is a change I want to perform each time I work on this repository. I don't want git to keep on tracking this folder and telling me that basic_abc was renamed to basic. How can I stop git from tracking this rename change?

Furthermore, if I run the command git status, it really gives a messy output since there is a large number of files in this folder.

How could I avoid it?

Answer 1

I think this can be done by ignoring a directory "locally".

• create a new "basic" directory
• copy all contents in "basic_abc" into it
• goto \.git\info in your project directory, open the exclude file.
• add a new line saying src/main/resources/basic.
• execute git status again, you will see git does not consider the new "basic" directory as an untracked file. But you need to synchronize its content with the "basic_abc" directory manually. As long as in the remote repository there is no directory or file named "basic" you are good to go.

The exclude file is for a "local git ignore". It has the same format as the .gitignore file but only works on your machine.

Answer 2

You could use git rm <folder> --cached - when needed you can simply add the folder again with git add <folder>. Note though that if you do a git commit -a before re-adding the folder, the removal will appear in that commit.

Important notice:

THE --cached argument IS IMPORTANT - WITHOUT THAT, git will DELETE the folder FROM YOUR HARD DISK.