How do I ignore a directory in the root of my git repository, but include it further down in the tree?

Question

I need to use .gitignore to exclude a directory in the root of my repository. However, other directories with the same name exist deeper in the directory tree, and I need those to be included. It seems that when I put the name of the directory into .gitignore, it catches all of these directories, not just the one I need to ignore. I understand that .gitignore is actually not a list of files, but patterns. So how can I construct a pattern to ignore just a file in my root directory, but not files with the same name further down?

Answer 1

Use a leading /

  /file.x

That will only match a top level file.x but not one lower down, in "want/file.x", say.