How do I use 'wildignore' in Vim?

Question

I'm having a lot of trouble figuring out the syntax for the wildignore setting in Vim.

Suppose I want my file finder plugin (I use Ctrlp, which uses wildignore) to not search through hidden files and folders, that is, files and folders prefixed with a ..

How would I go about doing that?

BenC · Answer 1 · 2014-05-06T21:35:23.793

10

Concerning ctrlp.vim and wildignore specifically, if you type :help ctrlp-options and read a bit, you will find:

Note #1: by default, wildignore and g:ctrlp_custom_ignore only apply when globpath() is used to scan for files, thus these options do not apply when a command defined with g:ctrlp_user_command is being used.

Thus, you may need to unlet g:ctrlp_user_command (possibly set to a default command) to actually use wildignore. For instance, in your ~/.vimrc, add:

if exists("g:ctrl_user_command")
    unlet g:ctrlp_user_command
endif
set wildignore+=.*

edited May 06 '14 at 21:35

answered Apr 11 '14 at 14:22

BenC

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I had tried adding wildignore, custom_ignore and the ctrl_user_command was not set. Finally found the another answer @BenC provided on a similar question. The Ctrlp caches results so once you've found files you want to ignore they will still show regardless of what you put in the wildignore/custom ignore until the ctrlp cache is cleared. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/21017857/ctrlp-still-searches-the-ignored-directory – Paul Aug 28 '15 at 12:01

score 10 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 16 '14 at 14:19

10

As BenC pointed out, Wildignore may not be the best way to ignore files if you are using CtrlP with an external search tool. Instead, you can use CtrlP's "custom_ignore" directive, as stated in their docs:

let g:ctrlp_custom_ignore = '\v[\/]\.(git|hg|svn)$'
let g:ctrlp_custom_ignore = {
    \ 'dir':  '\v[\/]\.(git|hg|svn)$',
    \ 'file': '\v\.(exe|so|dll)$',
    \ 'link': 'SOME_BAD_SYMBOLIC_LINKS',
    \ }

answered Sep 16 '14 at 14:19

Jordan Eldredge

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How do I separate multiple file patterns? – nn0p Nov 26 '16 at 05:51
@nn0p What do you mean? The extensions are seperated – JackHasaKeyboard Aug 31 '17 at 16:40
Is it possible to do this on a per-directory basis? – Schneems Apr 11 '20 at 17:18

score 8 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 06 '18 at 09:28

Because the title doesn't correspond to the best answer her is mine which corersponds not to ctrlp but to wildignore. Based on https://stackoverflow.com/a/579886/1170940

Vim will ignore file patterns specified in option wildignore , so you can set them like so:

:set wildignore=*.o,*~,*.pyc

For example, my wildignore looks as such

 set wildignore+=*/node_modules/*,_site,*/__pycache__/,*/venv/*,*/target/*,*/.vim$,\~$,*/.log,*/.aux,*/.cls,*/.aux,*/.bbl,*/.blg,*/.fls,*/.fdb*/,*/.toc,*/.out,*/.glo,*/.log,*/.ist,*/.fdb_latexmk

I use it for both ctrlp and NERDTree

score 5 · Answer 4 · answered Aug 15 '12 at 22:46

5

See :help file-pattern. Basically if you just want to exclude anything that starts with a dot you can do .*.

answered Aug 15 '12 at 22:46

Conner

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Nevermind i figured it out, thanks for the info. Type set:wildignore+=/home/USERNAME/.* – Fawkes5 Aug 15 '12 at 23:47
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@Fawkes5: You can also try `:set wildignore+=.*`. – ib. Aug 16 '12 at 02:02

How do I use 'wildignore' in Vim?

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