gitgit-rm

Git - Remove All of a Certain Type of File from the Repository


How do I remove all of a certain type of file from the Repository? I'm using

git filter-branch --index-filter 'git rm -rf --cached **/*.jar'

Either git is not expanding globs, or it isn't expanding ** in the way I'm expecting.


Solution

  • git filter-branch --index-filter 'git rm -rf --cached **/*.jar'
    

    should work, but it's a bit silly because git globs (*) match path separators. So, **/*.jar is equivalent to *.jar.

    This also means that */a*.jar matches dir1/abc/dir2/log4j.jar. If you want to match something like **/a*.jar (all jars whose name starts with a in any directory), you should use find. Here's a command to remove any jars whose names start with a or b, and any jars in dir1/dir2, and any .txt file in any directory:

    git filter-branch --index-filter \
         'git rm -rf --cached \
             "*.txt" \
             "dir1/dir2/*.jar" \
             $(find -type f -name "a*.jar" -o -name "b*.jar")'
    

    References: pathspec section of git help glossary.