git shows files as modified after adding to .gitignore

In Visual Studio, once the .Net project is setup with git, you might notice that it will keep track for extra files, like autogenerated files in obj/debug folders.

You can ignore these selected folders/files by using .gitignore file.

To ignore debug, release, bin and obj folders etc., you can make these entries in .gitignore file.

[Dd]ebug/
[Rr]elease/
[Bb]in/
[Oo]bj/

After settings these changes you might notice that git is still tracking the files in these folders.

The reason is that these are the changes before the .gitignore file is updated.

To fix this issue you need to removes all files that have been cached (as being 'tracked'), then re-add files based on the .gitignore file entries.

Here are the steps, notice the dot (.) in the end of first 2 commands, this . is part of command syntax:

• Remove all files recursively from index that are cached (being tracked).

  git rm -r --cached .
  

  rm is to remove files, -r is to remove recursively.

• Add all files that have changed (re-add the files). This command will add all files except those which are mentioned in .gitignore.

  git add .
  

• This command will commit your files again and remove the files you want to ignore, but keep them in your local directory.

  git commit -am "Remove ignored files"
  

How to set up git server on local machine (Windows)

To configure git server on local windows machine, you can follow these steps:

Setup Git Server Repo:

1. Go to folder, where you want to initialize the server, specify a name without spaces (else you will need to use quotes whenever accessing this folder)
2. Open this folder in command prompt and type this command to initiate server repo.

   //git init <repo-name>.git --bare
   
   git init mylocalrepo.git --bare
   
   

   

   mylocalrepo is the repository name.

   (Note: to avoid any issues later, its better to append the suffix '.git' to the repository name)

The git server repo is setup.

Setup Git Client/Clone:

1. Go to the folder, where you want to initialize the client.
2. Open this folder in command prompt and type this command to initiate client repo.

   //git clone <path_to_your_server>
   
   git clone C:\_Data\Test\GitServer\mylocalrepo.git
   

   You may need to change the back-slash "\" to forward-slash "/" in the path.

The client repo is setup.

You can try to make chages in client repo and push to git server.

Manually create a new file (readme.txt) in client folder, and make some changes.

You can stage this file:

git add .

Commit the changes with custom message:

git commit -m "added readme file"

Push the changes to git server:

git push