[venv] Adding a .gitignore file to virtual environments

[brettcannon]

BPO	39236
Nosy	@brettcannon, @vsajip, @asottile, @tirkarthi

^{Note: these values reflect the state of the issue at the time it was migrated and might not reflect the current state.}

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GitHub fields:

assignee = None
closed_at = None
created_at = <Date 2020-01-06.19:45:05.714>
labels = ['type-feature', 'library', '3.9']
title = '[venv] Adding a .gitignore file to virtual environments'
updated_at = <Date 2020-01-07.16:32:50.101>
user = 'https://github.com/brettcannon'

bugs.python.org fields:

activity = <Date 2020-01-07.16:32:50.101>
actor = 'vinay.sajip'
assignee = 'none'
closed = False
closed_date = None
closer = None
components = ['Library (Lib)']
creation = <Date 2020-01-06.19:45:05.714>
creator = 'brett.cannon'
dependencies = []
files = []
hgrepos = []
issue_num = 39236
keywords = []
message_count = 2.0
messages = ['359459', '359517']
nosy_count = 4.0
nosy_names = ['brett.cannon', 'vinay.sajip', 'Anthony Sottile', 'xtreak']
pr_nums = []
priority = 'low'
resolution = None
stage = None
status = 'open'
superseder = None
type = 'enhancement'
url = 'https://bugs.python.org/issue39236'
versions = ['Python 3.9']

Linked PRs

• GH-83417: Allow venv to add a .gitignore file to environments via a new scm_ignore_file parameter #108125

[brettcannon]

In a discussion on Twitter, the idea of having venv lay down a .gitignore file in a newly created virtual environment that consisted of nothing but * came up (https://twitter.com/codewithanthony/status/1213680829530099713). The purpose would be to help prevent people from inadvertently committing their venv to git. It seems pytest does something similar for .pytest_cache (got one complaint but have chosen to keep it otherwise).

To me this seems like a good enhancement. Since this would mostly benefit beginners then it should probably be an opt-out if we do it at all. Maybe make --no-ignore-file to opt out?

FYI Mercurial does not support subdirectory hgignore files like git does, so this may be git-specific (for now): https://www.selenic.com/mercurial/hgignore.5.html.

[vsajip]

I'm -0.5 on this. Beginners will probably shoot themselves in the foot multiple ways using git (or any DVCS), in terms of checking things in they didn't mean to (e.g. build artifacts which are not in the venv). As they can easily undo this, I don't think we need to do this.