Category: Javascript

Let´s asume we have a basic angular scaffolding with a test-folder added. You can find and download it on my github here

As we see, once we create an angular project, it usually initializes a git repository, and  node_modules folder is added to .gitignore by default. If we use visual studio code editor, the files or folders added to .gitignore are colored in grey.

Note: an empty folder will  be nothing to git. That means, it has to contain at least one file in order git considers it has something that can be pushed.

This way, our remote version for this local project will be like this. No node_modules folder is pushed because it is specified on our .gitignore

But now we realized that, for some reason, we don’t want “test-folder” to be on our remote repository on github anymore; but we still need it on our local version, so we can´t simply delete it.

An option is add it on our .gitignore file

There we find the already  ignored files by default, for example:

So, everything should be as easy as adding our test-folder to this file and the problem should be solved…

Unfortunately it is not so easy.

Despite you add this update your .gitignore and push the changes, test-folder will still be on your remote:

The thing is, .gitignore won´t delete the ignored files or folders from your remote repository if they are already there.

To achieve what we want, once the folder or file we want to ignore is added to the .gitignore file, we should move the folder or file we want to ignore outside of the project, and then add, commit and push new changes to the remote.

First, we will move it outside our local project

Once we add, commit and push changes, we can see it also disappeared from remote

Right now, we can move again our test-folder inside our project:

Did you notice? Despite we added the folder again, now the master branch acts like nothing new is added; that is because the test-folder is on the .gitignore file.

To test if it works, we will make a change on any other file, to push changes into the remote.

Something simple, for example change the site title on the main component of the app

Now you can see, after adding, committing and pushing changes, the test-folder has been successfully ignored.

EDIT: When you try to push changes, you could see something like this:

As explained here, that can happen if you made some changes on the remote branch which are still not done on the local branch. Foe example if you deleted already existing files on remote and added them to .gitignore on local branch.

You have 2 ways to solve it, as pointed on the link:

1. import new changes from REMOTE and merge it with your code and then push it to remote.
2. You can use this command to force changes to the server with the local repository (). remote repo code will be replaced with your local repo code.

   git push -f origin master
   

   With the -f tag you will override the remote branch code with your local repo code.