Documentation / git-add.txton commit builtin/checkout: Fix message when switching to an existing branch (09a0ec5)
   1git-add(1)
   2==========
   3
   4NAME
   5----
   6git-add - Add file contents to the index
   7
   8SYNOPSIS
   9--------
  10[verse]
  11'git add' [-n] [-v] [--force | -f] [--interactive | -i] [--patch | -p]
  12          [--edit | -e] [--all | [--update | -u]] [--intent-to-add | -N]
  13          [--refresh] [--ignore-errors] [--ignore-missing] [--]
  14          [<filepattern>...]
  15
  16DESCRIPTION
  17-----------
  18This command updates the index using the current content found in
  19the working tree, to prepare the content staged for the next commit.
  20It typically adds the current content of existing paths as a whole,
  21but with some options it can also be used to add content with
  22only part of the changes made to the working tree files applied, or
  23remove paths that do not exist in the working tree anymore.
  24
  25The "index" holds a snapshot of the content of the working tree, and it
  26is this snapshot that is taken as the contents of the next commit.  Thus
  27after making any changes to the working directory, and before running
  28the commit command, you must use the `add` command to add any new or
  29modified files to the index.
  30
  31This command can be performed multiple times before a commit.  It only
  32adds the content of the specified file(s) at the time the add command is
  33run; if you want subsequent changes included in the next commit, then
  34you must run `git add` again to add the new content to the index.
  35
  36The `git status` command can be used to obtain a summary of which
  37files have changes that are staged for the next commit.
  38
  39The `git add` command will not add ignored files by default.  If any
  40ignored files were explicitly specified on the command line, `git add`
  41will fail with a list of ignored files.  Ignored files reached by
  42directory recursion or filename globbing performed by Git (quote your
  43globs before the shell) will be silently ignored.  The 'git add' command can
  44be used to add ignored files with the `-f` (force) option.
  45
  46Please see linkgit:git-commit[1] for alternative ways to add content to a
  47commit.
  48
  49
  50OPTIONS
  51-------
  52<filepattern>...::
  53        Files to add content from.  Fileglobs (e.g. `*.c`) can
  54        be given to add all matching files.  Also a
  55        leading directory name (e.g. `dir` to add `dir/file1`
  56        and `dir/file2`) can be given to add all files in the
  57        directory, recursively.
  58
  59-n::
  60--dry-run::
  61        Don't actually add the file(s), just show if they exist and/or will
  62        be ignored.
  63
  64-v::
  65--verbose::
  66        Be verbose.
  67
  68-f::
  69--force::
  70        Allow adding otherwise ignored files.
  71
  72-i::
  73--interactive::
  74        Add modified contents in the working tree interactively to
  75        the index. Optional path arguments may be supplied to limit
  76        operation to a subset of the working tree. See ``Interactive
  77        mode'' for details.
  78
  79-p::
  80--patch::
  81        Interactively choose hunks of patch between the index and the
  82        work tree and add them to the index. This gives the user a chance
  83        to review the difference before adding modified contents to the
  84        index.
  85+
  86This effectively runs `add --interactive`, but bypasses the
  87initial command menu and directly jumps to the `patch` subcommand.
  88See ``Interactive mode'' for details.
  89
  90-e, \--edit::
  91        Open the diff vs. the index in an editor and let the user
  92        edit it.  After the editor was closed, adjust the hunk headers
  93        and apply the patch to the index.
  94+
  95*NOTE*: Obviously, if you change anything else than the first character
  96on lines beginning with a space or a minus, the patch will no longer
  97apply.
  98
  99-u::
 100--update::
 101        Only match <filepattern> against already tracked files in
 102        the index rather than the working tree. That means that it
 103        will never stage new files, but that it will stage modified
 104        new contents of tracked files and that it will remove files
 105        from the index if the corresponding files in the working tree
 106        have been removed.
 107+
 108If no <filepattern> is given, default to "."; in other words,
 109update all tracked files in the current directory and its
 110subdirectories.
 111
 112-A::
 113--all::
 114        Like `-u`, but match <filepattern> against files in the
 115        working tree in addition to the index. That means that it
 116        will find new files as well as staging modified content and
 117        removing files that are no longer in the working tree.
 118
 119-N::
 120--intent-to-add::
 121        Record only the fact that the path will be added later. An entry
 122        for the path is placed in the index with no content. This is
 123        useful for, among other things, showing the unstaged content of
 124        such files with `git diff` and committing them with `git commit
 125        -a`.
 126
 127--refresh::
 128        Don't add the file(s), but only refresh their stat()
 129        information in the index.
 130
 131--ignore-errors::
 132        If some files could not be added because of errors indexing
 133        them, do not abort the operation, but continue adding the
 134        others. The command shall still exit with non-zero status.
 135
 136--ignore-missing::
 137        This option can only be used together with --dry-run. By using
 138        this option the user can check if any of the given files would
 139        be ignored, no matter if they are already present in the work
 140        tree or not.
 141
 142\--::
 143        This option can be used to separate command-line options from
 144        the list of files, (useful when filenames might be mistaken
 145        for command-line options).
 146
 147
 148Configuration
 149-------------
 150
 151The optional configuration variable `core.excludesfile` indicates a path to a
 152file containing patterns of file names to exclude from git-add, similar to
 153$GIT_DIR/info/exclude.  Patterns in the exclude file are used in addition to
 154those in info/exclude.  See linkgit:gitrepository-layout[5].
 155
 156
 157EXAMPLES
 158--------
 159
 160* Adds content from all `\*.txt` files under `Documentation` directory
 161and its subdirectories:
 162+
 163------------
 164$ git add Documentation/\*.txt
 165------------
 166+
 167Note that the asterisk `\*` is quoted from the shell in this
 168example; this lets the command include the files from
 169subdirectories of `Documentation/` directory.
 170
 171* Considers adding content from all git-*.sh scripts:
 172+
 173------------
 174$ git add git-*.sh
 175------------
 176+
 177Because this example lets the shell expand the asterisk (i.e. you are
 178listing the files explicitly), it does not consider
 179`subdir/git-foo.sh`.
 180
 181Interactive mode
 182----------------
 183When the command enters the interactive mode, it shows the
 184output of the 'status' subcommand, and then goes into its
 185interactive command loop.
 186
 187The command loop shows the list of subcommands available, and
 188gives a prompt "What now> ".  In general, when the prompt ends
 189with a single '>', you can pick only one of the choices given
 190and type return, like this:
 191
 192------------
 193    *** Commands ***
 194      1: status       2: update       3: revert       4: add untracked
 195      5: patch        6: diff         7: quit         8: help
 196    What now> 1
 197------------
 198
 199You also could say `s` or `sta` or `status` above as long as the
 200choice is unique.
 201
 202The main command loop has 6 subcommands (plus help and quit).
 203
 204status::
 205
 206   This shows the change between HEAD and index (i.e. what will be
 207   committed if you say `git commit`), and between index and
 208   working tree files (i.e. what you could stage further before
 209   `git commit` using `git add`) for each path.  A sample output
 210   looks like this:
 211+
 212------------
 213              staged     unstaged path
 214     1:       binary      nothing foo.png
 215     2:     +403/-35        +1/-1 git-add--interactive.perl
 216------------
 217+
 218It shows that foo.png has differences from HEAD (but that is
 219binary so line count cannot be shown) and there is no
 220difference between indexed copy and the working tree
 221version (if the working tree version were also different,
 222'binary' would have been shown in place of 'nothing').  The
 223other file, git-add--interactive.perl, has 403 lines added
 224and 35 lines deleted if you commit what is in the index, but
 225working tree file has further modifications (one addition and
 226one deletion).
 227
 228update::
 229
 230   This shows the status information and issues an "Update>>"
 231   prompt.  When the prompt ends with double '>>', you can
 232   make more than one selection, concatenated with whitespace or
 233   comma.  Also you can say ranges.  E.g. "2-5 7,9" to choose
 234   2,3,4,5,7,9 from the list.  If the second number in a range is
 235   omitted, all remaining patches are taken.  E.g. "7-" to choose
 236   7,8,9 from the list.  You can say '*' to choose everything.
 237+
 238What you chose are then highlighted with '*',
 239like this:
 240+
 241------------
 242           staged     unstaged path
 243  1:       binary      nothing foo.png
 244* 2:     +403/-35        +1/-1 git-add--interactive.perl
 245------------
 246+
 247To remove selection, prefix the input with `-`
 248like this:
 249+
 250------------
 251Update>> -2
 252------------
 253+
 254After making the selection, answer with an empty line to stage the
 255contents of working tree files for selected paths in the index.
 256
 257revert::
 258
 259  This has a very similar UI to 'update', and the staged
 260  information for selected paths are reverted to that of the
 261  HEAD version.  Reverting new paths makes them untracked.
 262
 263add untracked::
 264
 265  This has a very similar UI to 'update' and
 266  'revert', and lets you add untracked paths to the index.
 267
 268patch::
 269
 270  This lets you choose one path out of a 'status' like selection.
 271  After choosing the path, it presents the diff between the index
 272  and the working tree file and asks you if you want to stage
 273  the change of each hunk.  You can say:
 274
 275       y - stage this hunk
 276       n - do not stage this hunk
 277       q - quit; do not stage this hunk nor any of the remaining ones
 278       a - stage this hunk and all later hunks in the file
 279       d - do not stage this hunk nor any of the later hunks in the file
 280       g - select a hunk to go to
 281       / - search for a hunk matching the given regex
 282       j - leave this hunk undecided, see next undecided hunk
 283       J - leave this hunk undecided, see next hunk
 284       k - leave this hunk undecided, see previous undecided hunk
 285       K - leave this hunk undecided, see previous hunk
 286       s - split the current hunk into smaller hunks
 287       e - manually edit the current hunk
 288       ? - print help
 289+
 290After deciding the fate for all hunks, if there is any hunk
 291that was chosen, the index is updated with the selected hunks.
 292
 293diff::
 294
 295  This lets you review what will be committed (i.e. between
 296  HEAD and index).
 297
 298SEE ALSO
 299--------
 300linkgit:git-status[1]
 301linkgit:git-rm[1]
 302linkgit:git-reset[1]
 303linkgit:git-mv[1]
 304linkgit:git-commit[1]
 305linkgit:git-update-index[1]
 306
 307Author
 308------
 309Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
 310
 311Documentation
 312--------------
 313Documentation by Junio C Hamano and the git-list <git@vger.kernel.org>.
 314
 315GIT
 316---
 317Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite