Documentation / git-commit.txton commit Make git send-email accept $EDITOR with arguments (0e0278b)
   1git-commit(1)
   2=============
   3
   4NAME
   5----
   6git-commit - Record changes to the repository
   7
   8SYNOPSIS
   9--------
  10[verse]
  11'git-commit' [-a | --interactive] [-s] [-v] [-u]
  12           [(-c | -C) <commit> | -F <file> | -m <msg> | --amend]
  13           [--allow-empty] [--no-verify] [-e] [--author <author>]
  14           [--] [[-i | -o ]<file>...]
  15
  16DESCRIPTION
  17-----------
  18Use 'git commit' to store the current contents of the index in a new
  19commit along with a log message describing the changes you have made.
  20
  21The content to be added can be specified in several ways:
  22
  231. by using gitlink:git-add[1] to incrementally "add" changes to the
  24   index before using the 'commit' command (Note: even modified
  25   files must be "added");
  26
  272. by using gitlink:git-rm[1] to remove files from the working tree
  28   and the index, again before using the 'commit' command;
  29
  303. by listing files as arguments to the 'commit' command, in which
  31   case the commit will ignore changes staged in the index, and instead
  32   record the current content of the listed files;
  33
  344. by using the -a switch with the 'commit' command to automatically
  35   "add" changes from all known files (i.e. all files that are already
  36   listed in the index) and to automatically "rm" files in the index
  37   that have been removed from the working tree, and then perform the
  38   actual commit;
  39
  405. by using the --interactive switch with the 'commit' command to decide one
  41   by one which files should be part of the commit, before finalizing the
  42   operation.  Currently, this is done by invoking `git-add --interactive`.
  43
  44The gitlink:git-status[1] command can be used to obtain a
  45summary of what is included by any of the above for the next
  46commit by giving the same set of parameters you would give to
  47this command.
  48
  49If you make a commit and then found a mistake immediately after
  50that, you can recover from it with gitlink:git-reset[1].
  51
  52
  53OPTIONS
  54-------
  55-a|--all::
  56        Tell the command to automatically stage files that have
  57        been modified and deleted, but new files you have not
  58        told git about are not affected.
  59
  60-c or -C <commit>::
  61        Take existing commit object, and reuse the log message
  62        and the authorship information (including the timestamp)
  63        when creating the commit.  With '-C', the editor is not
  64        invoked; with '-c' the user can further edit the commit
  65        message.
  66
  67-F <file>::
  68        Take the commit message from the given file.  Use '-' to
  69        read the message from the standard input.
  70
  71--author <author>::
  72        Override the author name used in the commit.  Use
  73        `A U Thor <author@example.com>` format.
  74
  75-m <msg>|--message=<msg>::
  76        Use the given <msg> as the commit message.
  77
  78-t <file>|--template=<file>::
  79        Use the contents of the given file as the initial version
  80        of the commit message. The editor is invoked and you can
  81        make subsequent changes. If a message is specified using
  82        the `-m` or `-F` options, this option has no effect. This
  83        overrides the `commit.template` configuration variable.
  84
  85-s|--signoff::
  86        Add Signed-off-by line at the end of the commit message.
  87
  88--no-verify::
  89        This option bypasses the pre-commit and commit-msg hooks.
  90        See also link:hooks.html[hooks].
  91
  92--allow-empty::
  93        Usually recording a commit that has the exact same tree as its
  94        sole parent commit is a mistake, and the command prevents you
  95        from making such a commit.  This option bypasses the safety, and
  96        is primarily for use by foreign scm interface scripts.
  97
  98-e|--edit::
  99        The message taken from file with `-F`, command line with
 100        `-m`, and from file with `-C` are usually used as the
 101        commit log message unmodified.  This option lets you
 102        further edit the message taken from these sources.
 103
 104--amend::
 105
 106        Used to amend the tip of the current branch. Prepare the tree
 107        object you would want to replace the latest commit as usual
 108        (this includes the usual -i/-o and explicit paths), and the
 109        commit log editor is seeded with the commit message from the
 110        tip of the current branch. The commit you create replaces the
 111        current tip -- if it was a merge, it will have the parents of
 112        the current tip as parents -- so the current top commit is
 113        discarded.
 114+
 115--
 116It is a rough equivalent for:
 117------
 118        $ git reset --soft HEAD^
 119        $ ... do something else to come up with the right tree ...
 120        $ git commit -c ORIG_HEAD
 121
 122------
 123but can be used to amend a merge commit.
 124--
 125
 126-i|--include::
 127        Before making a commit out of staged contents so far,
 128        stage the contents of paths given on the command line
 129        as well.  This is usually not what you want unless you
 130        are concluding a conflicted merge.
 131
 132-u|--untracked-files::
 133        Show all untracked files, also those in uninteresting
 134        directories, in the "Untracked files:" section of commit
 135        message template.  Without this option only its name and
 136        a trailing slash are displayed for each untracked
 137        directory.
 138
 139-v|--verbose::
 140        Show unified diff between the HEAD commit and what
 141        would be committed at the bottom of the commit message
 142        template.  Note that this diff output doesn't have its
 143        lines prefixed with '#'.
 144
 145-q|--quiet::
 146        Suppress commit summary message.
 147
 148\--::
 149        Do not interpret any more arguments as options.
 150
 151<file>...::
 152        When files are given on the command line, the command
 153        commits the contents of the named files, without
 154        recording the changes already staged.  The contents of
 155        these files are also staged for the next commit on top
 156        of what have been staged before.
 157
 158
 159EXAMPLES
 160--------
 161When recording your own work, the contents of modified files in
 162your working tree are temporarily stored to a staging area
 163called the "index" with gitlink:git-add[1].  A file can be
 164reverted back, only in the index but not in the working tree,
 165to that of the last commit with `git-reset HEAD -- <file>`,
 166which effectively reverts `git-add` and prevents the changes to
 167this file from participating in the next commit.  After building
 168the state to be committed incrementally with these commands,
 169`git commit` (without any pathname parameter) is used to record what
 170has been staged so far.  This is the most basic form of the
 171command.  An example:
 172
 173------------
 174$ edit hello.c
 175$ git rm goodbye.c
 176$ git add hello.c
 177$ git commit
 178------------
 179
 180Instead of staging files after each individual change, you can
 181tell `git commit` to notice the changes to the files whose
 182contents are tracked in
 183your working tree and do corresponding `git add` and `git rm`
 184for you.  That is, this example does the same as the earlier
 185example if there is no other change in your working tree:
 186
 187------------
 188$ edit hello.c
 189$ rm goodbye.c
 190$ git commit -a
 191------------
 192
 193The command `git commit -a` first looks at your working tree,
 194notices that you have modified hello.c and removed goodbye.c,
 195and performs necessary `git add` and `git rm` for you.
 196
 197After staging changes to many files, you can alter the order the
 198changes are recorded in, by giving pathnames to `git commit`.
 199When pathnames are given, the command makes a commit that
 200only records the changes made to the named paths:
 201
 202------------
 203$ edit hello.c hello.h
 204$ git add hello.c hello.h
 205$ edit Makefile
 206$ git commit Makefile
 207------------
 208
 209This makes a commit that records the modification to `Makefile`.
 210The changes staged for `hello.c` and `hello.h` are not included
 211in the resulting commit.  However, their changes are not lost --
 212they are still staged and merely held back.  After the above
 213sequence, if you do:
 214
 215------------
 216$ git commit
 217------------
 218
 219this second commit would record the changes to `hello.c` and
 220`hello.h` as expected.
 221
 222After a merge (initiated by either gitlink:git-merge[1] or
 223gitlink:git-pull[1]) stops because of conflicts, cleanly merged
 224paths are already staged to be committed for you, and paths that
 225conflicted are left in unmerged state.  You would have to first
 226check which paths are conflicting with gitlink:git-status[1]
 227and after fixing them manually in your working tree, you would
 228stage the result as usual with gitlink:git-add[1]:
 229
 230------------
 231$ git status | grep unmerged
 232unmerged: hello.c
 233$ edit hello.c
 234$ git add hello.c
 235------------
 236
 237After resolving conflicts and staging the result, `git ls-files -u`
 238would stop mentioning the conflicted path.  When you are done,
 239run `git commit` to finally record the merge:
 240
 241------------
 242$ git commit
 243------------
 244
 245As with the case to record your own changes, you can use `-a`
 246option to save typing.  One difference is that during a merge
 247resolution, you cannot use `git commit` with pathnames to
 248alter the order the changes are committed, because the merge
 249should be recorded as a single commit.  In fact, the command
 250refuses to run when given pathnames (but see `-i` option).
 251
 252
 253DISCUSSION
 254----------
 255
 256Though not required, it's a good idea to begin the commit message
 257with a single short (less than 50 character) line summarizing the
 258change, followed by a blank line and then a more thorough description.
 259Tools that turn commits into email, for example, use the first line
 260on the Subject: line and the rest of the commit in the body.
 261
 262include::i18n.txt[]
 263
 264ENVIRONMENT AND CONFIGURATION VARIABLES
 265---------------------------------------
 266The editor used to edit the commit log message will be chosen from the
 267GIT_EDITOR environment variable, the core.editor configuration variable, the
 268VISUAL environment variable, or the EDITOR environment variable (in that
 269order).
 270
 271HOOKS
 272-----
 273This command can run `commit-msg`, `pre-commit`, and
 274`post-commit` hooks.  See link:hooks.html[hooks] for more
 275information.
 276
 277
 278SEE ALSO
 279--------
 280gitlink:git-add[1],
 281gitlink:git-rm[1],
 282gitlink:git-mv[1],
 283gitlink:git-merge[1],
 284gitlink:git-commit-tree[1]
 285
 286Author
 287------
 288Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org> and
 289Junio C Hamano <junkio@cox.net>
 290
 291
 292GIT
 293---
 294Part of the gitlink:git[7] suite