Documentation / git-add.txton commit Improved hint on how to set identity (180787c)
   1git-add(1)
   2==========
   3
   4NAME
   5----
   6git-add - Add file contents to the index
   7
   8SYNOPSIS
   9--------
  10'git-add' [-n] [-v] [-f] [--interactive | -i] [-u] [--refresh] [--] <file>...
  11
  12DESCRIPTION
  13-----------
  14This command adds the current content of new or modified files to the
  15index, thus staging that content for inclusion in the next commit.
  16
  17The "index" holds a snapshot of the content of the working tree, and it
  18is this snapshot that is taken as the contents of the next commit.  Thus
  19after making any changes to the working directory, and before running
  20the commit command, you must use the 'add' command to add any new or
  21modified files to the index.
  22
  23This command can be performed multiple times before a commit.  It only
  24adds the content of the specified file(s) at the time the add command is
  25run; if you want subsequent changes included in the next commit, then
  26you must run 'git add' again to add the new content to the index.
  27
  28The 'git status' command can be used to obtain a summary of which
  29files have changes that are staged for the next commit.
  30
  31The 'add' command can be used to add ignored files with `-f` (force)
  32option, but they have to be explicitly and exactly specified from the
  33command line.  File globbing and recursive behaviour do not add ignored
  34files.
  35
  36Please see gitlink:git-commit[1] for alternative ways to add content to a
  37commit.
  38
  39
  40OPTIONS
  41-------
  42<file>...::
  43        Files to add content from.  Fileglobs (e.g. `*.c`) can
  44        be given to add all matching files.  Also a
  45        leading directory name (e.g. `dir` to add `dir/file1`
  46        and `dir/file2`) can be given to add all files in the
  47        directory, recursively.
  48
  49-n::
  50        Don't actually add the file(s), just show if they exist.
  51
  52-v::
  53        Be verbose.
  54
  55-f::
  56        Allow adding otherwise ignored files.
  57
  58-i, \--interactive::
  59        Add modified contents in the working tree interactively to
  60        the index.
  61
  62-u::
  63        Update only files that git already knows about. This is similar
  64        to what "git commit -a" does in preparation for making a commit,
  65        except that the update is limited to paths specified on the
  66        command line. If no paths are specified, all tracked files are
  67        updated.
  68
  69\--refresh::
  70        Don't add the file(s), but only refresh their stat()
  71        information in the index.
  72
  73\--::
  74        This option can be used to separate command-line options from
  75        the list of files, (useful when filenames might be mistaken
  76        for command-line options).
  77
  78
  79Configuration
  80-------------
  81
  82The optional configuration variable 'core.excludesfile' indicates a path to a
  83file containing patterns of file names to exclude from git-add, similar to
  84$GIT_DIR/info/exclude.  Patterns in the exclude file are used in addition to
  85those in info/exclude.  See link:repository-layout.html[repository layout].
  86
  87
  88EXAMPLES
  89--------
  90git-add Documentation/\\*.txt::
  91
  92        Adds content from all `\*.txt` files under `Documentation`
  93        directory and its subdirectories.
  94+
  95Note that the asterisk `\*` is quoted from the shell in this
  96example; this lets the command to include the files from
  97subdirectories of `Documentation/` directory.
  98
  99git-add git-*.sh::
 100
 101        Considers adding content from all git-*.sh scripts.
 102        Because this example lets shell expand the asterisk
 103        (i.e. you are listing the files explicitly), it does not
 104        consider `subdir/git-foo.sh`.
 105
 106Interactive mode
 107----------------
 108When the command enters the interactive mode, it shows the
 109output of the 'status' subcommand, and then goes into its
 110interactive command loop.
 111
 112The command loop shows the list of subcommands available, and
 113gives a prompt "What now> ".  In general, when the prompt ends
 114with a single '>', you can pick only one of the choices given
 115and type return, like this:
 116
 117------------
 118    *** Commands ***
 119      1: status       2: update       3: revert       4: add untracked
 120      5: patch        6: diff         7: quit         8: help
 121    What now> 1
 122------------
 123
 124You also could say "s" or "sta" or "status" above as long as the
 125choice is unique.
 126
 127The main command loop has 6 subcommands (plus help and quit).
 128
 129status::
 130
 131   This shows the change between HEAD and index (i.e. what will be
 132   committed if you say "git commit"), and between index and
 133   working tree files (i.e. what you could stage further before
 134   "git commit" using "git-add") for each path.  A sample output
 135   looks like this:
 136+
 137------------
 138              staged     unstaged path
 139     1:       binary      nothing foo.png
 140     2:     +403/-35        +1/-1 git-add--interactive.perl
 141------------
 142+
 143It shows that foo.png has differences from HEAD (but that is
 144binary so line count cannot be shown) and there is no
 145difference between indexed copy and the working tree
 146version (if the working tree version were also different,
 147'binary' would have been shown in place of 'nothing').  The
 148other file, git-add--interactive.perl, has 403 lines added
 149and 35 lines deleted if you commit what is in the index, but
 150working tree file has further modifications (one addition and
 151one deletion).
 152
 153update::
 154
 155   This shows the status information and gives prompt
 156   "Update>>".  When the prompt ends with double '>>', you can
 157   make more than one selection, concatenated with whitespace or
 158   comma.  Also you can say ranges.  E.g. "2-5 7,9" to choose
 159   2,3,4,5,7,9 from the list.  You can say '*' to choose
 160   everything.
 161+
 162What you chose are then highlighted with '*',
 163like this:
 164+
 165------------
 166           staged     unstaged path
 167  1:       binary      nothing foo.png
 168* 2:     +403/-35        +1/-1 git-add--interactive.perl
 169------------
 170+
 171To remove selection, prefix the input with `-`
 172like this:
 173+
 174------------
 175Update>> -2
 176------------
 177+
 178After making the selection, answer with an empty line to stage the
 179contents of working tree files for selected paths in the index.
 180
 181revert::
 182
 183  This has a very similar UI to 'update', and the staged
 184  information for selected paths are reverted to that of the
 185  HEAD version.  Reverting new paths makes them untracked.
 186
 187add untracked::
 188
 189  This has a very similar UI to 'update' and
 190  'revert', and lets you add untracked paths to the index.
 191
 192patch::
 193
 194  This lets you choose one path out of 'status' like selection.
 195  After choosing the path, it presents diff between the index
 196  and the working tree file and asks you if you want to stage
 197  the change of each hunk.  You can say:
 198
 199       y - add the change from that hunk to index
 200       n - do not add the change from that hunk to index
 201       a - add the change from that hunk and all the rest to index
 202       d - do not the change from that hunk nor any of the rest to index
 203       j - do not decide on this hunk now, and view the next
 204           undecided hunk
 205       J - do not decide on this hunk now, and view the next hunk
 206       k - do not decide on this hunk now, and view the previous
 207           undecided hunk
 208       K - do not decide on this hunk now, and view the previous hunk
 209+
 210After deciding the fate for all hunks, if there is any hunk
 211that was chosen, the index is updated with the selected hunks.
 212
 213diff::
 214
 215  This lets you review what will be committed (i.e. between
 216  HEAD and index).
 217
 218
 219See Also
 220--------
 221gitlink:git-status[1]
 222gitlink:git-rm[1]
 223gitlink:git-mv[1]
 224gitlink:git-commit[1]
 225gitlink:git-update-index[1]
 226
 227Author
 228------
 229Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
 230
 231Documentation
 232--------------
 233Documentation by Junio C Hamano and the git-list <git@vger.kernel.org>.
 234
 235GIT
 236---
 237Part of the gitlink:git[7] suite