GitIgnoreSpec behaviors differ from git

[lumina37]

Here is the demo for pathspec:

from pathlib import Path

import pathspec

exclude_lines=["*", "!libfoo", "!libfoo/**"]
exclude_spec = pathspec.GitIgnoreSpec.from_lines(exclude_lines)

print(exclude_spec.match_file(Path("./libfoo/__init__.py")))

In pathspec==0.11.2 the result is True, which means ./libfoo/__init__.py is excluded.

---

Another demo to check the behavior of Git:

Directory structure be like

demo-project
├── libfoo
│   └── __init__.py
└── .gitignore

Then check ignorance with command git check-ignore -v ./libfoo/__init__.py

Expect no output, which means ./libfoo/__init__.py is not excluded.

---

I suppose this difference is caused by the priority between directory and file patterns.

python-pathspec/pathspec/gitignore.py

Lines 124 to 136 in 878be22

	if dir_mark:
	# Pattern matched by a directory pattern.
	priority = 1
	else:
	# Pattern matched by a file pattern.
	priority = 2
	if pattern.include and dir_mark:
	out_matched = pattern.include
	out_priority = priority
	elif priority >= out_priority:
	out_matched = pattern.include
	out_priority = priority

Including pattern !/libfoo/** is treated as a directory pattern and will be overridden by the excluding file pattern *, thus the ./libfoo/__init__.py will get excluded.

p.s. I've googled this priority mechanism several hours, but still could not find out any documentation mentioning it.

---

Other platform info:
pathspec 0.11.2
Git 2.40.1.windows.1
Windows 11 22H2 (22621.2134)
Python 3.11.4

[cpburnz]

Thanks for the bug report.

The priority mechanism is an implementation detail meant to replicate how Git seems to prioritize directories over files. It's not something officially from the Git documentation.

[cpburnz]

This is now fixed in v0.12.0.