git-clean(1) - phpMan

GIT-CLEAN(1) Git Manual GIT-CLEAN(1)

NAME
git-clean - Remove untracked files from the working tree

SYNOPSIS
git clean [-d] [-f] [-i] [-n] [-q] [-e <pattern>] [-x | -X] [--] <path>...

DESCRIPTION
Cleans the working tree by recursively removing files that are not under version control,
starting from the current directory.

Normally, only files unknown to Git are removed, but if the -x option is specified,
ignored files are also removed. This can, for example, be useful to remove all build
products.

If any optional <path>... arguments are given, only those paths are affected.

OPTIONS
-d
Normally, when no <path> is specified, git clean will not recurse into untracked
directories to avoid removing too much. Specify -d to have it recurse into such
directories as well. If any paths are specified, -d is irrelevant; all untracked files
matching the specified paths (with exceptions for nested git directories mentioned
under --force) will be removed.

-f, --force
If the Git configuration variable clean.requireForce is not set to false, git clean
will refuse to delete files or directories unless given -f or -i. Git will refuse to
modify untracked nested git repositories (directories with a .git subdirectory) unless
a second -f is given.

-i, --interactive
Show what would be done and clean files interactively. See "Interactive mode" for
details.

-n, --dry-run
Don't actually remove anything, just show what would be done.

-q, --quiet
Be quiet, only report errors, but not the files that are successfully removed.

-e <pattern>, --exclude=<pattern>
Use the given exclude pattern in addition to the standard ignore rules (see
gitignore(5)).

-x
Don't use the standard ignore rules (see gitignore(5)), but still use the ignore rules
given with -e options from the command line. This allows removing all untracked files,
including build products. This can be used (possibly in conjunction with git restore
or git reset) to create a pristine working directory to test a clean build.

-X
Remove only files ignored by Git. This may be useful to rebuild everything from
scratch, but keep manually created files.

INTERACTIVE MODE
When the command enters the interactive mode, it shows the files and directories to be
cleaned, and goes into its interactive command loop.

The command loop shows the list of subcommands available, and gives a prompt "What now> ".
In general, when the prompt ends with a single >, you can pick only one of the choices
given and type return, like this:

*** Commands ***
1: clean 2: filter by pattern 3: select by numbers
4: ask each 5: quit 6: help
What now> 1

You also could say c or clean above as long as the choice is unique.

The main command loop has 6 subcommands.

clean
Start cleaning files and directories, and then quit.

filter by pattern
This shows the files and directories to be deleted and issues an "Input ignore
patterns>>" prompt. You can input space-separated patterns to exclude files and
directories from deletion. E.g. "*.c *.h" will excludes files end with ".c" and ".h"
from deletion. When you are satisfied with the filtered result, press ENTER (empty)
back to the main menu.

select by numbers
This shows the files and directories to be deleted and issues an "Select items to
delete>>" prompt. When the prompt ends with double >> like this, you can make more
than one selection, concatenated with whitespace or comma. Also you can say ranges.
E.g. "2-5 7,9" to choose 2,3,4,5,7,9 from the list. If the second number in a range is
omitted, all remaining items are selected. E.g. "7-" to choose 7,8,9 from the list.
You can say * to choose everything. Also when you are satisfied with the filtered
result, press ENTER (empty) back to the main menu.

ask each
This will start to clean, and you must confirm one by one in order to delete items.
Please note that this action is not as efficient as the above two actions.

quit
This lets you quit without do cleaning.

help
Show brief usage of interactive git-clean.