.gitignore not ignoring file that hasn't been added to the repo

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I have a file in my git repo that has never been comitted or added with git add. But .gitignore doesn't seem to work. This file is called

bit_train_[3].json

No previous commits contain this file. In my .gitignore (same folder as this file) I added the line

bit_train_[3].json

If I use git status -u it says

Untracked files: bit_train_[3].json

Why is this file still visible? I suspect that the brackets [3] in the file name might cause the issue but I'm unsure

There are other .json files that I want to keep in my repos so I can't use *.json in my gitignore

gitignore github git
1 Answers

Square brackets are special characters — they mean character lists and ranges. To make git interpret them literally in .gitignore escape them with backslashes:

bit_train_\[3\].json
user_79767580
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