Documentation / git-add.txton commit Merge branch 'maint-1.6.0' into maint-1.6.1 (66fd74e)
   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          [--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-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-A::
  90--all::
  91        Update files that git already knows about (same as '\--update')
  92        and add all untracked files that are not ignored by '.gitignore'
  93        mechanism.
  94
  95
  96-N::
  97--intent-to-add::
  98        Record only the fact that the path will be added later. An entry
  99        for the path is placed in the index with no content. This is
 100        useful for, among other things, showing the unstaged content of
 101        such files with 'git diff' and committing them with 'git commit
 102        -a'.
 103
 104--refresh::
 105        Don't add the file(s), but only refresh their stat()
 106        information in the index.
 107
 108--ignore-errors::
 109        If some files could not be added because of errors indexing
 110        them, do not abort the operation, but continue adding the
 111        others. The command shall still exit with non-zero status.
 112
 113\--::
 114        This option can be used to separate command-line options from
 115        the list of files, (useful when filenames might be mistaken
 116        for command-line options).
 117
 118
 119Configuration
 120-------------
 121
 122The optional configuration variable 'core.excludesfile' indicates a path to a
 123file containing patterns of file names to exclude from git-add, similar to
 124$GIT_DIR/info/exclude.  Patterns in the exclude file are used in addition to
 125those in info/exclude.  See linkgit:gitrepository-layout[5].
 126
 127
 128EXAMPLES
 129--------
 130
 131* Adds content from all `\*.txt` files under `Documentation` directory
 132and its subdirectories:
 133+
 134------------
 135$ git add Documentation/\\*.txt
 136------------
 137+
 138Note that the asterisk `\*` is quoted from the shell in this
 139example; this lets the command include the files from
 140subdirectories of `Documentation/` directory.
 141
 142* Considers adding content from all git-*.sh scripts:
 143+
 144------------
 145$ git add git-*.sh
 146------------
 147+
 148Because this example lets the shell expand the asterisk (i.e. you are
 149listing the files explicitly), it does not consider
 150`subdir/git-foo.sh`.
 151
 152Interactive mode
 153----------------
 154When the command enters the interactive mode, it shows the
 155output of the 'status' subcommand, and then goes into its
 156interactive command loop.
 157
 158The command loop shows the list of subcommands available, and
 159gives a prompt "What now> ".  In general, when the prompt ends
 160with a single '>', you can pick only one of the choices given
 161and type return, like this:
 162
 163------------
 164    *** Commands ***
 165      1: status       2: update       3: revert       4: add untracked
 166      5: patch        6: diff         7: quit         8: help
 167    What now> 1
 168------------
 169
 170You also could say "s" or "sta" or "status" above as long as the
 171choice is unique.
 172
 173The main command loop has 6 subcommands (plus help and quit).
 174
 175status::
 176
 177   This shows the change between HEAD and index (i.e. what will be
 178   committed if you say "git commit"), and between index and
 179   working tree files (i.e. what you could stage further before
 180   "git commit" using "git-add") for each path.  A sample output
 181   looks like this:
 182+
 183------------
 184              staged     unstaged path
 185     1:       binary      nothing foo.png
 186     2:     +403/-35        +1/-1 git-add--interactive.perl
 187------------
 188+
 189It shows that foo.png has differences from HEAD (but that is
 190binary so line count cannot be shown) and there is no
 191difference between indexed copy and the working tree
 192version (if the working tree version were also different,
 193'binary' would have been shown in place of 'nothing').  The
 194other file, git-add--interactive.perl, has 403 lines added
 195and 35 lines deleted if you commit what is in the index, but
 196working tree file has further modifications (one addition and
 197one deletion).
 198
 199update::
 200
 201   This shows the status information and issues an "Update>>"
 202   prompt.  When the prompt ends with double '>>', you can
 203   make more than one selection, concatenated with whitespace or
 204   comma.  Also you can say ranges.  E.g. "2-5 7,9" to choose
 205   2,3,4,5,7,9 from the list.  If the second number in a range is
 206   omitted, all remaining patches are taken.  E.g. "7-" to choose
 207   7,8,9 from the list.  You can say '*' to choose everything.
 208+
 209What you chose are then highlighted with '*',
 210like 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+
 218To remove selection, prefix the input with `-`
 219like this:
 220+
 221------------
 222Update>> -2
 223------------
 224+
 225After making the selection, answer with an empty line to stage the
 226contents of working tree files for selected paths in the index.
 227
 228revert::
 229
 230  This has a very similar UI to 'update', and the staged
 231  information for selected paths are reverted to that of the
 232  HEAD version.  Reverting new paths makes them untracked.
 233
 234add untracked::
 235
 236  This has a very similar UI to 'update' and
 237  'revert', and lets you add untracked paths to the index.
 238
 239patch::
 240
 241  This lets you choose one path out of a 'status' like selection.
 242  After choosing the path, it presents the diff between the index
 243  and the working tree file and asks you if you want to stage
 244  the change of each hunk.  You can say:
 245
 246       y - stage this hunk
 247       n - do not stage this hunk
 248       a - stage this and all the remaining hunks in the file
 249       d - do not stage this hunk nor any of the remaining hunks in the file
 250       j - leave this hunk undecided, see next undecided hunk
 251       J - leave this hunk undecided, see next hunk
 252       k - leave this hunk undecided, see previous undecided hunk
 253       K - leave this hunk undecided, see previous hunk
 254       s - split the current hunk into smaller hunks
 255       e - manually edit the current hunk
 256       ? - print help
 257+
 258After deciding the fate for all hunks, if there is any hunk
 259that was chosen, the index is updated with the selected hunks.
 260
 261diff::
 262
 263  This lets you review what will be committed (i.e. between
 264  HEAD and index).
 265
 266Bugs
 267----
 268The interactive mode does not work with files whose names contain
 269characters that need C-quoting.  `core.quotepath` configuration can be
 270used to work this limitation around to some degree, but backslash,
 271double-quote and control characters will still have problems.
 272
 273SEE ALSO
 274--------
 275linkgit:git-status[1]
 276linkgit:git-rm[1]
 277linkgit:git-reset[1]
 278linkgit:git-mv[1]
 279linkgit:git-commit[1]
 280linkgit:git-update-index[1]
 281
 282Author
 283------
 284Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
 285
 286Documentation
 287--------------
 288Documentation by Junio C Hamano and the git-list <git@vger.kernel.org>.
 289
 290GIT
 291---
 292Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite