Why doesn't .gitignore work across branches?

Question

Working on a local Git (cloned) repository, I have created a branch and placed .gitignore file within it to exclude few directories from git commit. It works just fine, but after switching to a different branch, those directories (the excluded ones) appear in it (on the branch which does not include those directories).

Is it a normal Git behavior? If so, what is the best practice to avoid the issue above?

Answer 1

The .gitignore file is a file in the repository just like any other. So if you create a new .gitignore file, commit it on one branch, then switch to another, the .gitignore file will disappear. This is normal.