This is a follow-up to Ignore files in git log -p and is also related to Making 'git log' ignore changes for certain paths. I'm using Git 1.9.2. I'm trying to use the pathspec magic :(exclude) to specify that some patches should not be shown in the output of git log -p. However, patches that I want to exclude still show up in the output. Here is minimal working example that reproduces the situation: cd ~/Desktop mkdir test_exclude cd test_exclude git init mkdir testdir echo "my first cpp file" >testdir/test1.cpp echo "my first xml file" >testdir/test2.xml git add testdir/ git commit -m "added two test files" Now I want to show all patches in my history expect those corresponding to XML files in the testdir folder. Therefore, following VonC's answer, I run git log --patch -- . ":(exclude)testdir/*.xml" but the patch for my testdir/test2.xml file still shows up in the output: commit 37767da1ad4ad5a5c902dfa0c9b95351e8a3b0d9 Author: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Date: Mon Aug 18 12:23:56 2014 +0100 added two test files diff --git a/testdir/test1.cpp b/testdir/test1.cpp new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3a721aa --- /dev/null +++ b/testdir/test1.cpp @@ -0,0 +1 @@ +my first cpp file diff --git a/testdir/test2.xml b/testdir/test2.xml new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8b7ce86 --- /dev/null +++ b/testdir/test2.xml @@ -0,0 +1 @@ +my first xml file What am I doing wrong? What should I do to tell git log -p not to show the patch associated with all XML files in my testdir folder?