git clean isn't cleaning hidden files

Question

I have 3 untracked files in my working directory:

$ git sta
## features/subchecks...upstream/BR_4_1_4 [ahead 4]
?? Applications/ETM/Build/Android/.project
?? Applications/zFacebook/Build/Android/.project
?? Core/Barcode/Build/Android/.project

I do a dry run of git clean like so:

$ git clean -n

But it's not showing any files will be cleaned. Why is it not cleaning the .project files? I'm using msysgit 1.9.2 on Windows.

Answer 1

To put the tree back into a fully clean slate and get rid of everything locally that is not tracked by git, do the following:

git clean -fdx

If you want to keep files that are ignored by git (i.e. files in .gitignore) then leave the "x" off.