Ignore Only Works Correctly in every scenario with --no-folding

[Educpf]

Description

Any method to exclude specific files in Stow is only respected if --no-folding is also used. Without --no-folding, Stow may create a symlink for the whole package folder, ignoring the file-level exclusions.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Create a package folder with some files such that stowing would normally create a folder link (folding).

2. Create a test file in your package folder, e.g., something.ignore.

3. Run:

   stow -R --ignore='\.ignore$' mypackage
   

4. Observe that something.ignore is still linked.

5. Now run:

   stow --no-folding --ignore='\.ignore$' mypackage
   

6. Observe that something.ignore is correctly ignored.

Expected Behavior

The --ignore flag should work regardless of the --no-folding option. Stow should automatically detect that folding isn't possible due to ignored files.

Actual Behavior

Files matching the --ignore pattern are only ignored if --no-folding is used, or if the file layout naturally prevents folding.

Environment

• GNU Stow version: 2.4.1
• OS: Arch Linux

Notes

This behavior is reproducible with .stow-local-ignore and .stow-global-ignore as well—--no-folding is required for file-level ignores to be respected. This appears to be a bug in how Stow handles folding versus individual file ignores.

[aspiers]

Thanks for the report, sounds like this is probably a bug.