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] [--force | -f] [--interactive | -i] [--patch | -p]
  12           [--update | -u] [--refresh] [--ignore-errors] [--]
  13           <filepattern>...
  14
  15 DESCRIPTION
  16 -----------
  17 This command adds the current content of new or modified files to the
  18 index, thus staging that content for inclusion in the next commit.
  19
  20 The "index" holds a snapshot of the content of the working tree, and it
  21 is this snapshot that is taken as the contents of the next commit.  Thus
  22 after making any changes to the working directory, and before running
  23 the commit command, you must use the 'add' command to add any new or
  24 modified files to the index.
  25
  26 This command can be performed multiple times before a commit.  It only
  27 adds the content of the specified file(s) at the time the add command is
  28 run; if you want subsequent changes included in the next commit, then
  29 you must run 'git add' again to add the new content to the index.
  30
  31 The 'git status' command can be used to obtain a summary of which
  32 files have changes that are staged for the next commit.
  33
  34 The 'git add' command will not add ignored files by default.  If any
  35 ignored files were explicitly specified on the command line, 'git add'
  36 will fail with a list of ignored files.  Ignored files reached by
  37 directory recursion or filename globbing performed by Git (quote your
  38 globs before the shell) will be silently ignored.  The 'add' command can
  39 be used to add ignored files with the `-f` (force) option.
  40
  41 Please see linkgit:git-commit[1] for alternative ways to add content to a
  42 commit.
  43
  44
  45 OPTIONS
  46 -------
  47 <filepattern>...::
  48         Files to add content from.  Fileglobs (e.g. `*.c`) can
  49         be given to add all matching files.  Also a
  50         leading directory name (e.g. `dir` to add `dir/file1`
  51         and `dir/file2`) can be given to add all files in the
  52         directory, recursively.
  53
  54 -n::
  55 --dry-run::
  56         Don't actually add the file(s), just show if they exist.
  57
  58 -v::
  59 --verbose::
  60         Be verbose.
  61
  62 -f::
  63 --force::
  64         Allow adding otherwise ignored files.
  65
  66 -i::
  67 --interactive::
  68         Add modified contents in the working tree interactively to
  69         the index. Optional path arguments may be supplied to limit
  70         operation to a subset of the working tree. See ``Interactive
  71         mode'' for details.
  72
  73 -p::
  74 --patch::
  75         Similar to Interactive mode but the initial command loop is
  76         bypassed and the 'patch' subcommand is invoked using each of
  77         the specified filepatterns before exiting.
  78
  79 -u::
  80 --update::
  81         Update only files that git already knows about, staging modified
  82         content for commit and marking deleted files for removal. This
  83         is similar
  84         to what "git commit -a" does in preparation for making a commit,
  85         except that the update is limited to paths specified on the
  86         command line. If no paths are specified, all tracked files in the
  87         current directory and its subdirectories are updated.
  88
  89 --refresh::
  90         Don't add the file(s), but only refresh their stat()
  91         information in the index.
  92
  93 --ignore-errors::
  94         If some files could not be added because of errors indexing
  95         them, do not abort the operation, but continue adding the
  96         others. The command shall still exit with non-zero status.
  97
  98 \--::
  99         This option can be used to separate command-line options from
 100         the list of files, (useful when filenames might be mistaken
 101         for command-line options).
 102
 103
 104 Configuration
 105 -------------
 106
 107 The optional configuration variable 'core.excludesfile' indicates a path to a
 108 file containing patterns of file names to exclude from git-add, similar to
 109 $GIT_DIR/info/exclude.  Patterns in the exclude file are used in addition to
 110 those in info/exclude.  See linkgit:gitrepository-layout[5].
 111
 112
 113 EXAMPLES
 114 --------
 115
 116 * Adds content from all `\*.txt` files under `Documentation` directory
 117 and its subdirectories:
 118 +
 119 ------------
 120 $ git add Documentation/\\*.txt
 121 ------------
 122 +
 123 Note that the asterisk `\*` is quoted from the shell in this
 124 example; this lets the command to include the files from
 125 subdirectories of `Documentation/` directory.
 126
 127 * Considers adding content from all git-*.sh scripts:
 128 +
 129 ------------
 130 $ git add git-*.sh
 131 ------------
 132 +
 133 Because this example lets shell expand the asterisk (i.e. you are
 134 listing the files explicitly), it does not consider
 135 `subdir/git-foo.sh`.
 136
 137 Interactive mode
 138 ----------------
 139 When the command enters the interactive mode, it shows the
 140 output of the 'status' subcommand, and then goes into its
 141 interactive command loop.
 142
 143 The command loop shows the list of subcommands available, and
 144 gives a prompt "What now> ".  In general, when the prompt ends
 145 with a single '>', you can pick only one of the choices given
 146 and type return, like this:
 147
 148 ------------
 149     *** Commands ***
 150       1: status       2: update       3: revert       4: add untracked
 151       5: patch        6: diff         7: quit         8: help
 152     What now> 1
 153 ------------
 154
 155 You also could say "s" or "sta" or "status" above as long as the
 156 choice is unique.
 157
 158 The main command loop has 6 subcommands (plus help and quit).
 159
 160 status::
 161
 162    This shows the change between HEAD and index (i.e. what will be
 163    committed if you say "git commit"), and between index and
 164    working tree files (i.e. what you could stage further before
 165    "git commit" using "git-add") for each path.  A sample output
 166    looks like this:
 167 +
 168 ------------
 169               staged     unstaged path
 170      1:       binary      nothing foo.png
 171      2:     +403/-35        +1/-1 git-add--interactive.perl
 172 ------------
 173 +
 174 It shows that foo.png has differences from HEAD (but that is
 175 binary so line count cannot be shown) and there is no
 176 difference between indexed copy and the working tree
 177 version (if the working tree version were also different,
 178 'binary' would have been shown in place of 'nothing').  The
 179 other file, git-add--interactive.perl, has 403 lines added
 180 and 35 lines deleted if you commit what is in the index, but
 181 working tree file has further modifications (one addition and
 182 one deletion).
 183
 184 update::
 185
 186    This shows the status information and gives prompt
 187    "Update>>".  When the prompt ends with double '>>', you can
 188    make more than one selection, concatenated with whitespace or
 189    comma.  Also you can say ranges.  E.g. "2-5 7,9" to choose
 190    2,3,4,5,7,9 from the list.  You can say '*' to choose
 191    everything.
 192 +
 193 What you chose are then highlighted with '*',
 194 like this:
 195 +
 196 ------------
 197            staged     unstaged path
 198   1:       binary      nothing foo.png
 199 * 2:     +403/-35        +1/-1 git-add--interactive.perl
 200 ------------
 201 +
 202 To remove selection, prefix the input with `-`
 203 like this:
 204 +
 205 ------------
 206 Update>> -2
 207 ------------
 208 +
 209 After making the selection, answer with an empty line to stage the
 210 contents of working tree files for selected paths in the index.
 211
 212 revert::
 213
 214   This has a very similar UI to 'update', and the staged
 215   information for selected paths are reverted to that of the
 216   HEAD version.  Reverting new paths makes them untracked.
 217
 218 add untracked::
 219
 220   This has a very similar UI to 'update' and
 221   'revert', and lets you add untracked paths to the index.
 222
 223 patch::
 224
 225   This lets you choose one path out of 'status' like selection.
 226   After choosing the path, it presents diff between the index
 227   and the working tree file and asks you if you want to stage
 228   the change of each hunk.  You can say:
 229
 230        y - stage this hunk
 231        n - do not stage this hunk
 232        a - stage this and all the remaining hunks in the file
 233        d - do not stage this hunk nor any of the remaining hunks in the file
 234        j - leave this hunk undecided, see next undecided hunk
 235        J - leave this hunk undecided, see next hunk
 236        k - leave this hunk undecided, see previous undecided hunk
 237        K - leave this hunk undecided, see previous hunk
 238        s - split the current hunk into smaller hunks
 239        ? - print help
 240 +
 241 After deciding the fate for all hunks, if there is any hunk
 242 that was chosen, the index is updated with the selected hunks.
 243
 244 diff::
 245
 246   This lets you review what will be committed (i.e. between
 247   HEAD and index).
 248
 249 Bugs
 250 ----
 251 The interactive mode does not work with files whose names contain
 252 characters that need C-quoting.  `core.quotepath` configuration can be
 253 used to work this limitation around to some degree, but backslash,
 254 double-quote and control characters will still have problems.
 255
 256 SEE ALSO
 257 --------
 258 linkgit:git-status[1]
 259 linkgit:git-rm[1]
 260 linkgit:git-reset[1]
 261 linkgit:git-mv[1]
 262 linkgit:git-commit[1]
 263 linkgit:git-update-index[1]
 264
 265 Author
 266 ------
 267 Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
 268
 269 Documentation
 270 --------------
 271 Documentation by Junio C Hamano and the git-list <git@vger.kernel.org>.
 272
 273 GIT
 274 ---
 275 Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite