OUTFILE=gitignore cat >$OUTFILE < .gitignore ## ## - ETj nb*.xml .classpath .project .settings EOF for pom in $(find -name "pom.xml") do path=${pom%*pom.xml} echo '#' $path >>$OUTFILE echo >>$OUTFILE echo ${path}target >>$OUTFILE echo >>$OUTFILE done echo New file gitignore has been created. You may now want to replace your original .gitignore file. echo