How to ignore one file in a grunt-watch task? - gruntjs

Question

'use strict';
module.exports = function(grunt) {
// Project Configuration
grunt.initConfig({
pkg: grunt.file.readJSON('package.json'),
watch: {
jade: {
files: ['app/views/**'],
options: {
livereload: true,
},
},
js: {
files: ['!public/build.js', 'gruntfile.js', 'server.js', 'app/**/*.js', 'public/js/**', 'test/**/*.js'],
tasks: ['uglify', 'jshint'],
options: {
livereload: true,
},
},
html: {
files: ['public/views/**'],
options: {
livereload: true,
},
},
css: {
files: ['public/css/**'],
options: {
livereload: true
}
}
},
jshint: {
all: {
src: ['!public/build.js', 'gruntfile.js', 'server.js', 'app/**/*.js', 'public/js/**', 'test/**/*.js'],
options: {
jshintrc: true
}
}
},
uglify: {
options: {
mangle: false
},
dist: {
files: {
'public/build.js': ['public/js/**/*.js']
}
}
},
nodemon: {
dev: {
options: {
file: 'server.js',
args: [],
ignoredFiles: ['public/**'],
watchedExtensions: ['js'],
nodeArgs: ['--debug'],
delayTime: 1,
env: {
PORT: 3000
},
cwd: __dirname
}
}
},
concurrent: {
tasks: ['nodemon', 'watch', 'uglify'],
options: {
logConcurrentOutput: true
}
},
mochaTest: {
options: {
reporter: 'spec',
require: 'server.js'
},
src: ['test/mocha/**/*.js']
},
env: {
test: {
NODE_ENV: 'test'
}
},
karma: {
unit: {
configFile: 'test/karma/karma.conf.js'
}
}
});
//Load NPM tasks
grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-contrib-watch');
grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-contrib-uglify');
grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-contrib-jshint');
grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-mocha-test');
grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-karma');
grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-nodemon');
grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-concurrent');
grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-env');
//Making grunt default to force in order not to break the project.
grunt.option('force', true);
//Default task(s).
grunt.registerTask('default', ['jshint', 'concurrent']);
//Test task.
grunt.registerTask('test', ['env:test', 'mochaTest', 'karma:unit']);
};
I'm trying to exclude the public/build.js file, but it doesn't seem to be working. What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

Edit:
Why do you need to exclude it from your watch? I do not see any glob pattern in your watch:js task that would look for changed in that file to begin with.
Original Answer:
Have you tried moving '!public/build.js' as the last include in your watch task?
The part of the documentation sited:
"Patterns are processed in-order, with !-prefixed matches excluding matched files from the result set"
Makes me think that the excluded file at the beginning gets added back in with the 'public/js/**' pattern.
I would try changing your js watch task to this.
js: {
files: ['gruntfile.js', 'server.js', 'app/**/*.js', 'public/js/**', 'test/**/*.js', '!public/build.js'],
tasks: ['uglify', 'jshint'],
options: {
livereload: true,
},
},

Answer 2

Add the ! to the beginning of the file name. !public/build.js
You could also add a jshintignore file with all the files you want to ignore inside that.