title: git clean: What does "Would not remove" mean?
body: <p>When I run <code>git clean --dry-run</code> the results are a bit like:</p>
  
  <pre><code>Would remove an_untracked_file
  Would remove an_untracked_file_2
  Would not remove some_unrelated_folder/subfolder/
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>The "unrelated" folders are tracked and have had no changes, so I would not expect git to remove them.</p>
  
  <p>But, why does git report <code>Would not remove</code> for some, but not all, of my project's normal (and totally untouched) folders?</p>
  
  <p>Can I tell what is causing git to consider, but then decide against, removing them?</p>
  
  <p><code>git status</code> lists only the couple of un-tracked files I know about. As expected.</p>
  
  <p><code>git ls-files --other --exclude-standard</code> returns those same un-tracked files.  As expected.</p>
  
  <p><code>git ls-files --other --exclude-standard --directory</code> returns those same un-tracked files, plus a bunch of seemingly normal directories.  This is not what I expected to see since I thought <a href="http://linux.die.net/man/1/git-ls-files" rel="noreferrer">the purpose of</a> <code>--directory</code> was to <em>reduce</em>, not increase the number of results returned.</p>
  
  <p>Upon spot checking the unexpected directories, it seems each one is empty, except for a ".gitignore"d .svn sub-folder.   Perhaps this factors in to things.</p>
  
  <p>Can anyone help me understand this behavior? </p>
  
  <p>Thank you</p>