How to exclude certain directories/files from git grep search

In git 1.9.0 the "magic word" exclude was added to pathspecs. So if you want to search for foobar in every file except for those matching *.java you can do:

git grep foobar -- './*' ':(exclude)*.java'

Or using the ! "short form" for exclude:

git grep foobar -- './*' ':!*.java'

Note that in git versions up to v2.12, when using an exclude pathspec, you must have at least one "inclusive" pathspec. In the above examples this is the ./* (recursively include everything under the current directory). In git v2.13 this restriction was lifted and git grep foobar -- ':!*.java' works without the ./*.

You could also use something like :(top) (short form: :/) to include everything from the top of the repo. But then you'd probably also want to adjust your exclude pathspec to start from the top as well: :/!*.java (otherwise it would only exclude *.java files from under your current directory).

There's a good reference for all the "magic words" allowed in a pathspec at git-scm.com (or just git help glossary). For some reason, the docs at kernel.org are really out of date even though they often come up first in google searches.

Update: For git >= 1.9 there is native support for exclude patterns, see onlyone's answer.

This may seem backwards, but you can pass a list of files not matching your exclude pattern to git grep like this:

git grep <pattern> -- `git ls-files | grep -v <exclude-pattern>`

grep -v returns every path not matching <exclude-pattern>. Note that git ls-files also takes a --exclude parameter, but that is only applied to untracked files.

It's not possible, but has been discussed recently. Proposed workaround in link:

You can put *.dll to .gitignore file then git grep --exclude-standard.

EDIT see onlynone's answer, since git 1.9.0 it's possible.