Documentation/git-add.txt

   1 git-add(1)
   2 ==========
   3
   4 NAME
   5 ----
   6 git-add - Add file contents to the index
   7
   8 SYNOPSIS
   9 --------
  10 [verse]
  11 'git-add' [-n] [-v] [-f] [--interactive | -i] [--patch | -p] [-u] [--refresh]
  12           [--ignore-errors] [--] <filepattern>...
  13
  14 DESCRIPTION
  15 -----------
  16 This command adds the current content of new or modified files to the
  17 index, thus staging that content for inclusion in the next commit.
  18
  19 The "index" holds a snapshot of the content of the working tree, and it
  20 is this snapshot that is taken as the contents of the next commit.  Thus
  21 after making any changes to the working directory, and before running
  22 the commit command, you must use the 'add' command to add any new or
  23 modified files to the index.
  24
  25 This command can be performed multiple times before a commit.  It only
  26 adds the content of the specified file(s) at the time the add command is
  27 run; if you want subsequent changes included in the next commit, then
  28 you must run 'git add' again to add the new content to the index.
  29
  30 The 'git status' command can be used to obtain a summary of which
  31 files have changes that are staged for the next commit.
  32
  33 The 'git add' command will not add ignored files by default.  If any
  34 ignored files were explicitly specified on the command line, 'git add'
  35 will fail with a list of ignored files.  Ignored files reached by
  36 directory recursion or filename globbing performed by Git (quote your
  37 globs before the shell) will be silently ignored.  The 'add' command can
  38 be used to add ignored files with the `-f` (force) option.
  39
  40 Please see linkgit:git-commit[1] for alternative ways to add content to a
  41 commit.
  42
  43
  44 OPTIONS
  45 -------
  46 <filepattern>...::
  47         Files to add content from.  Fileglobs (e.g. `*.c`) can
  48         be given to add all matching files.  Also a
  49         leading directory name (e.g. `dir` to add `dir/file1`
  50         and `dir/file2`) can be given to add all files in the
  51         directory, recursively.
  52
  53 -n, \--dry-run::
  54         Don't actually add the file(s), just show if they exist.
  55
  56 -v, \--verbose::
  57         Be verbose.
  58
  59 -f::
  60         Allow adding otherwise ignored files.
  61
  62 -i, \--interactive::
  63         Add modified contents in the working tree interactively to
  64         the index. Optional path arguments may be supplied to limit
  65         operation to a subset of the working tree. See ``Interactive
  66         mode'' for details.
  67
  68 -p, \--patch::
  69         Similar to Interactive mode but the initial command loop is
  70         bypassed and the 'patch' subcommand is invoked using each of
  71         the specified filepatterns before exiting.
  72
  73 -u::
  74         Update only files that git already knows about, staging modified
  75         content for commit and marking deleted files for removal. This
  76         is similar
  77         to what "git commit -a" does in preparation for making a commit,
  78         except that the update is limited to paths specified on the
  79         command line. If no paths are specified, all tracked files in the
  80         current directory and its subdirectories are updated.
  81
  82 \--refresh::
  83         Don't add the file(s), but only refresh their stat()
  84         information in the index.
  85
  86 \--ignore-errors::
  87         If some files could not be added because of errors indexing
  88         them, do not abort the operation, but continue adding the
  89         others. The command shall still exit with non-zero status.
  90
  91 \--::
  92         This option can be used to separate command-line options from
  93         the list of files, (useful when filenames might be mistaken
  94         for command-line options).
  95
  96
  97 Configuration
  98 -------------
  99
 100 The optional configuration variable 'core.excludesfile' indicates a path to a
 101 file containing patterns of file names to exclude from git-add, similar to
 102 $GIT_DIR/info/exclude.  Patterns in the exclude file are used in addition to
 103 those in info/exclude.  See link:repository-layout.html[repository layout].
 104
 105
 106 EXAMPLES
 107 --------
 108
 109 * Adds content from all `\*.txt` files under `Documentation` directory
 110 and its subdirectories:
 111 +
 112 ------------
 113 $ git add Documentation/\\*.txt
 114 ------------
 115 +
 116 Note that the asterisk `\*` is quoted from the shell in this
 117 example; this lets the command to include the files from
 118 subdirectories of `Documentation/` directory.
 119
 120 * Considers adding content from all git-*.sh scripts:
 121 +
 122 ------------
 123 $ git add git-*.sh
 124 ------------
 125 +
 126 Because this example lets shell expand the asterisk (i.e. you are
 127 listing the files explicitly), it does not consider
 128 `subdir/git-foo.sh`.
 129
 130 Interactive mode
 131 ----------------
 132 When the command enters the interactive mode, it shows the
 133 output of the 'status' subcommand, and then goes into its
 134 interactive command loop.
 135
 136 The command loop shows the list of subcommands available, and
 137 gives a prompt "What now> ".  In general, when the prompt ends
 138 with a single '>', you can pick only one of the choices given
 139 and type return, like this:
 140
 141 ------------
 142     *** Commands ***
 143       1: status       2: update       3: revert       4: add untracked
 144       5: patch        6: diff         7: quit         8: help
 145     What now> 1
 146 ------------
 147
 148 You also could say "s" or "sta" or "status" above as long as the
 149 choice is unique.
 150
 151 The main command loop has 6 subcommands (plus help and quit).
 152
 153 status::
 154
 155    This shows the change between HEAD and index (i.e. what will be
 156    committed if you say "git commit"), and between index and
 157    working tree files (i.e. what you could stage further before
 158    "git commit" using "git-add") for each path.  A sample output
 159    looks like this:
 160 +
 161 ------------
 162               staged     unstaged path
 163      1:       binary      nothing foo.png
 164      2:     +403/-35        +1/-1 git-add--interactive.perl
 165 ------------
 166 +
 167 It shows that foo.png has differences from HEAD (but that is
 168 binary so line count cannot be shown) and there is no
 169 difference between indexed copy and the working tree
 170 version (if the working tree version were also different,
 171 'binary' would have been shown in place of 'nothing').  The
 172 other file, git-add--interactive.perl, has 403 lines added
 173 and 35 lines deleted if you commit what is in the index, but
 174 working tree file has further modifications (one addition and
 175 one deletion).
 176
 177 update::
 178
 179    This shows the status information and gives prompt
 180    "Update>>".  When the prompt ends with double '>>', you can
 181    make more than one selection, concatenated with whitespace or
 182    comma.  Also you can say ranges.  E.g. "2-5 7,9" to choose
 183    2,3,4,5,7,9 from the list.  You can say '*' to choose
 184    everything.
 185 +
 186 What you chose are then highlighted with '*',
 187 like this:
 188 +
 189 ------------
 190            staged     unstaged path
 191   1:       binary      nothing foo.png
 192 * 2:     +403/-35        +1/-1 git-add--interactive.perl
 193 ------------
 194 +
 195 To remove selection, prefix the input with `-`
 196 like this:
 197 +
 198 ------------
 199 Update>> -2
 200 ------------
 201 +
 202 After making the selection, answer with an empty line to stage the
 203 contents of working tree files for selected paths in the index.
 204
 205 revert::
 206
 207   This has a very similar UI to 'update', and the staged
 208   information for selected paths are reverted to that of the
 209   HEAD version.  Reverting new paths makes them untracked.
 210
 211 add untracked::
 212
 213   This has a very similar UI to 'update' and
 214   'revert', and lets you add untracked paths to the index.
 215
 216 patch::
 217
 218   This lets you choose one path out of 'status' like selection.
 219   After choosing the path, it presents diff between the index
 220   and the working tree file and asks you if you want to stage
 221   the change of each hunk.  You can say:
 222
 223        y - stage this hunk
 224        n - do not stage this hunk
 225        a - stage this and all the remaining hunks in the file
 226        d - do not stage this hunk nor any of the remaining hunks in the file
 227        j - leave this hunk undecided, see next undecided hunk
 228        J - leave this hunk undecided, see next hunk
 229        k - leave this hunk undecided, see previous undecided hunk
 230        K - leave this hunk undecided, see previous hunk
 231        s - split the current hunk into smaller hunks
 232        ? - print help
 233 +
 234 After deciding the fate for all hunks, if there is any hunk
 235 that was chosen, the index is updated with the selected hunks.
 236
 237 diff::
 238
 239   This lets you review what will be committed (i.e. between
 240   HEAD and index).
 241
 242 Bugs
 243 ----
 244 The interactive mode does not work with files whose names contain
 245 characters that need C-quoting.  `core.quotepath` configuration can be
 246 used to work this limitation around to some degree, but backslash,
 247 double-quote and control characters will still have problems.
 248
 249 See Also
 250 --------
 251 linkgit:git-status[1]
 252 linkgit:git-rm[1]
 253 linkgit:git-reset[1]
 254 linkgit:git-mv[1]
 255 linkgit:git-commit[1]
 256 linkgit:git-update-index[1]
 257
 258 Author
 259 ------
 260 Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
 261
 262 Documentation
 263 --------------
 264 Documentation by Junio C Hamano and the git-list <git@vger.kernel.org>.
 265
 266 GIT
 267 ---
 268 Part of the linkgit:git[7] suite