To accomodate this problem, CVS defines ignore specs which describe files that are to be ignored. The ignore specs work much like the old "globbing" expressions used by some shells.
Ignore specs match file names, but they allow for two wildcard characters. The character '*' will match any number of any characters, and the '?' character will match any single character.
Ignore specs are separated by spaces. This is a problem for developers that allow spaces in their filenames.
*.class *.txt *.jar | This is a common ignore spec used by Java developers. It will ignore all class files, all JAR files, and text files. Thus, all of the following files would be ignored: Main.class, Utility.class, app.jar, notes.txt, stackTrace.txt. |
*.o *.a core *.so | This is a common ignore spec used by C developers. It will ignore all object files, library files, shared library files, and core files. |