Removing all the files in a branch with git?

Question

Trying to run git rm -r * on a branch. I have dist in .gitignore, but still get this error:

fatal: pathspec 'dist' did not match any files

Thoughts?

Answer 1

You're seeing this error because * is actually interpolated by your shell into the list of all files; git doesn't know you're trying to use a wildcard. git rm -r . ("delete all files recursively, starting from this folder") should work instead.