Ignore folder in stable, but not in devel branch

Question

I have the following folder structure for my project

src/
   test_unit/
   package1/
      test_unit/
   package2/
      test_unit
output/

In my devel branch all folders should be version controlled, but the master/stable branch should ignore and not merge test_unit/ and output/ folder.

How can I achieve this? With .gitignore it won't work because .gitignore will be merged between the branches.

Answer 1

I know that you're new here—so am I—but your question would attract more answers if you formatted it. Perhaps a list showing folder structure, like this:

 - List item
 - List item
  - List item
 - List item

That would turn into:

• List item
• List item
  • List item
• List item

Answer 2

Try a combination of .gitignore and .gitattributes files:

• in master/stable branch, you could have .gitattributes referring to a custom merge driver which would effectively ignore the .gitattributes and .gitignore coming from test_unit folders.
• in devel branch, you could have .gitattributes referring to a custom merge driver for ignoring the .gitignore coming from test_unit folders from the master branch, and keeping their own version of .gitattributes.

That way, you can define .gitignore in test_unit folders in the master branch: they won't impact devel branch in case of merge.