Documentation / git-add.txton commit Merge branch 'jk/maint-1.6.0-trace-argv' (2beba6b)
   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] [--] <filepattern>...
  14
  15DESCRIPTION
  16-----------
  17This command adds the current content of new or modified files to the
  18index, thus staging that content for inclusion in the next commit.
  19
  20The "index" holds a snapshot of the content of the working tree, and it
  21is this snapshot that is taken as the contents of the next commit.  Thus
  22after making any changes to the working directory, and before running
  23the commit command, you must use the 'add' command to add any new or
  24modified files to the index.
  25
  26This command can be performed multiple times before a commit.  It only
  27adds the content of the specified file(s) at the time the add command is
  28run; if you want subsequent changes included in the next commit, then
  29you must run 'git add' again to add the new content to the index.
  30
  31The 'git status' command can be used to obtain a summary of which
  32files have changes that are staged for the next commit.
  33
  34The 'git add' command will not add ignored files by default.  If any
  35ignored files were explicitly specified on the command line, 'git add'
  36will fail with a list of ignored files.  Ignored files reached by
  37directory recursion or filename globbing performed by Git (quote your
  38globs before the shell) will be silently ignored.  The 'add' command can
  39be used to add ignored files with the `-f` (force) option.
  40
  41Please see linkgit:git-commit[1] for alternative ways to add content to a
  42commit.
  43
  44
  45OPTIONS
  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-e, \--edit::
  80        Open the diff vs. the index in an editor and let the user
  81        edit it.  After the editor was closed, adjust the hunk headers
  82        and apply the patch to the index.
  83+
  84*NOTE*: Obviously, if you change anything else than the first character
  85on lines beginning with a space or a minus, the patch will no longer
  86apply.
  87
  88-u::
  89--update::
  90        Update only files that git already knows about, staging modified
  91        content for commit and marking deleted files for removal. This
  92        is similar
  93        to what "git commit -a" does in preparation for making a commit,
  94        except that the update is limited to paths specified on the
  95        command line. If no paths are specified, all tracked files in the
  96        current directory and its subdirectories are updated.
  97
  98-A::
  99--all::
 100        Update files that git already knows about (same as '\--update')
 101        and add all untracked files that are not ignored by '.gitignore'
 102        mechanism.
 103
 104
 105-N::
 106--intent-to-add::
 107        Record only the fact that the path will be added later. An entry
 108        for the path is placed in the index with no content. This is
 109        useful for, among other things, showing the unstaged content of
 110        such files with 'git diff' and committing them with 'git commit
 111        -a'.
 112
 113--refresh::
 114        Don't add the file(s), but only refresh their stat()
 115        information in the index.
 116
 117--ignore-errors::
 118        If some files could not be added because of errors indexing
 119        them, do not abort the operation, but continue adding the
 120        others. The command shall still exit with non-zero status.
 121
 122\--::
 123        This option can be used to separate command-line options from
 124        the list of files, (useful when filenames might be mistaken
 125        for command-line options).
 126
 127
 128Configuration
 129-------------
 130
 131The optional configuration variable 'core.excludesfile' indicates a path to a
 132file containing patterns of file names to exclude from git-add, similar to
 133$GIT_DIR/info/exclude.  Patterns in the exclude file are used in addition to
 134those in info/exclude.  See linkgit:gitrepository-layout[5].
 135
 136
 137EXAMPLES
 138--------
 139
 140* Adds content from all `\*.txt` files under `Documentation` directory
 141and its subdirectories:
 142+
 143------------
 144$ git add Documentation/\\*.txt
 145------------
 146+
 147Note that the asterisk `\*` is quoted from the shell in this
 148example; this lets the command include the files from
 149subdirectories of `Documentation/` directory.
 150
 151* Considers adding content from all git-*.sh scripts:
 152+
 153------------
 154$ git add git-*.sh
 155------------
 156+
 157Because this example lets the shell expand the asterisk (i.e. you are
 158listing the files explicitly), it does not consider
 159`subdir/git-foo.sh`.
 160
 161Interactive mode
 162----------------
 163When the command enters the interactive mode, it shows the
 164output of the 'status' subcommand, and then goes into its
 165interactive command loop.
 166
 167The command loop shows the list of subcommands available, and
 168gives a prompt "What now> ".  In general, when the prompt ends
 169with a single '>', you can pick only one of the choices given
 170and type return, like this:
 171
 172------------
 173    *** Commands ***
 174      1: status       2: update       3: revert       4: add untracked
 175      5: patch        6: diff         7: quit         8: help
 176    What now> 1
 177------------
 178
 179You also could say "s" or "sta" or "status" above as long as the
 180choice is unique.
 181
 182The main command loop has 6 subcommands (plus help and quit).
 183
 184status::
 185
 186   This shows the change between HEAD and index (i.e. what will be
 187   committed if you say "git commit"), and between index and
 188   working tree files (i.e. what you could stage further before
 189   "git commit" using "git-add") for each path.  A sample output
 190   looks like this:
 191+
 192------------
 193              staged     unstaged path
 194     1:       binary      nothing foo.png
 195     2:     +403/-35        +1/-1 git-add--interactive.perl
 196------------
 197+
 198It shows that foo.png has differences from HEAD (but that is
 199binary so line count cannot be shown) and there is no
 200difference between indexed copy and the working tree
 201version (if the working tree version were also different,
 202'binary' would have been shown in place of 'nothing').  The
 203other file, git-add--interactive.perl, has 403 lines added
 204and 35 lines deleted if you commit what is in the index, but
 205working tree file has further modifications (one addition and
 206one deletion).
 207
 208update::
 209
 210   This shows the status information and issues an "Update>>"
 211   prompt.  When the prompt ends with double '>>', you can
 212   make more than one selection, concatenated with whitespace or
 213   comma.  Also you can say ranges.  E.g. "2-5 7,9" to choose
 214   2,3,4,5,7,9 from the list.  If the second number in a range is
 215   omitted, all remaining patches are taken.  E.g. "7-" to choose
 216   7,8,9 from the list.  You can say '*' to choose everything.
 217+
 218What you chose are then highlighted with '*',
 219like this:
 220+
 221------------
 222           staged     unstaged path
 223  1:       binary      nothing foo.png
 224* 2:     +403/-35        +1/-1 git-add--interactive.perl
 225------------
 226+
 227To remove selection, prefix the input with `-`
 228like this:
 229+
 230------------
 231Update>> -2
 232------------
 233+
 234After making the selection, answer with an empty line to stage the
 235contents of working tree files for selected paths in the index.
 236
 237revert::
 238
 239  This has a very similar UI to 'update', and the staged
 240  information for selected paths are reverted to that of the
 241  HEAD version.  Reverting new paths makes them untracked.
 242
 243add untracked::
 244
 245  This has a very similar UI to 'update' and
 246  'revert', and lets you add untracked paths to the index.
 247
 248patch::
 249
 250  This lets you choose one path out of a 'status' like selection.
 251  After choosing the path, it presents the diff between the index
 252  and the working tree file and asks you if you want to stage
 253  the change of each hunk.  You can say:
 254
 255       y - stage this hunk
 256       n - do not stage this hunk
 257       q - quit, do not stage this hunk nor any of the remaining ones
 258       a - stage this and all the remaining hunks in the file
 259       d - do not stage this hunk nor any of the remaining hunks in the file
 260       g - select a hunk to go to
 261       / - search for a hunk matching the given regex
 262       j - leave this hunk undecided, see next undecided hunk
 263       J - leave this hunk undecided, see next hunk
 264       k - leave this hunk undecided, see previous undecided hunk
 265       K - leave this hunk undecided, see previous hunk
 266       s - split the current hunk into smaller hunks
 267       e - manually edit the current hunk
 268       ? - print help
 269+
 270After deciding the fate for all hunks, if there is any hunk
 271that was chosen, the index is updated with the selected hunks.
 272
 273diff::
 274
 275  This lets you review what will be committed (i.e. between
 276  HEAD and index).
 277
 278SEE ALSO
 279--------
 280linkgit:git-status[1]
 281linkgit:git-rm[1]
 282linkgit:git-reset[1]
 283linkgit:git-mv[1]
 284linkgit:git-commit[1]
 285linkgit:git-update-index[1]
 286
 287Author
 288------
 289Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
 290
 291Documentation
 292--------------
 293Documentation by Junio C Hamano and the git-list <git@vger.kernel.org>.
 294
 295GIT
 296---
 297Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite