Examples of CODEOWNERS ! negation

[jamesbraza]

Code of Conduct

• I have read and agree to the GitHub Docs project's Code of Conduct

What article on docs.github.com is affected?

https://docs.github.com/en/repositories/managing-your-repositorys-settings-and-features/customizing-your-repository/about-code-owners

What changes are you suggesting?

Currently for negation, there is one mention of it in the docs:

Using ! to negate a pattern

There should be an example showing a negation. I am struggling to figure out how to use this feature.

GitHub UI is saying "invalid pattern" for either of these:

!directory/* @some-owner
! directory/* @some-owner

I think an example would be a great way to spell out how to do negation.

Additional information

No response

[welcome]

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[janiceilene]

👋 @jamesbraza The section of the docs that includes the ! syntax says:

Syntax exceptions
There are some syntax rules for gitignore files that do not work in CODEOWNERS files:

Escaping a pattern starting with # using \ so it is treated as a pattern and not a comment
Using ! to negate a pattern
Using [ ] to define a character range

The patterns listed there \, !, and [ ] do not work in CODEOWNERS files, so we are not going to add any examples.

Thanks so much for opening an issue!

[jamesbraza]

HA that is funny, I must have totally misread the docs. Thank you @janiceilene!

[JasonWHowell]

Oddly, I misread the doc to say it worked, instead of NOT worked. It spent 30 minutes until I found this issue and reread it as "do not work". I wish each example said "... doesn't work" at the end of the three sentences.

During my futile testing, I found using ! still validates. Is that a bug, or does it treat the ! as a literal?

[nguyenalex836]

During my futile testing, I found using ! still validates. Is that a bug, or does it treat the ! as a literal?

@subatoi Would you have any insight on this? 🤔

[subatoi]

👋 Thanks for the ping. I'm hoping the following will help:

• I have no problem with creating an issue to add "doesn't work" to each of the three sentences in question, and opening it to contributors. We have a freeze this week, but can happily merge a PR next week if it's been raised by then

• The negation syntax will only "work" with a space between ! and the target, so the example in the image will count as valid CODEOWNERS syntax because it's not valid negation syntax—I'm hoping that my point above will clarify the situation for any future readers sufficiently, though (ie don't expect negation syntax to work at all)

[nguyenalex836]

I have no problem with creating an issue to add "doesn't work" to each of the three sentences in question, and opening it to contributors.

I've opened the following issue to have the doc updated! #34805