Documentation / git-add.txton commit Merge branch 'js/cvsexportcommit' (6c99f18)
   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] [-f] [--interactive | -i] [--patch | -p] [-u] [--refresh]
  12          [--ignore-errors] [--] <filepattern>...
  13
  14DESCRIPTION
  15-----------
  16This command adds the current content of new or modified files to the
  17index, thus staging that content for inclusion in the next commit.
  18
  19The "index" holds a snapshot of the content of the working tree, and it
  20is this snapshot that is taken as the contents of the next commit.  Thus
  21after making any changes to the working directory, and before running
  22the commit command, you must use the 'add' command to add any new or
  23modified files to the index.
  24
  25This command can be performed multiple times before a commit.  It only
  26adds the content of the specified file(s) at the time the add command is
  27run; if you want subsequent changes included in the next commit, then
  28you must run 'git add' again to add the new content to the index.
  29
  30The 'git status' command can be used to obtain a summary of which
  31files have changes that are staged for the next commit.
  32
  33The 'git add' command will not add ignored files by default.  If any
  34ignored files were explicitly specified on the command line, 'git add'
  35will fail with a list of ignored files.  Ignored files reached by
  36directory recursion or filename globbing performed by Git (quote your
  37globs before the shell) will be silently ignored.  The 'add' command can
  38be used to add ignored files with the `-f` (force) option.
  39
  40Please see linkgit:git-commit[1] for alternative ways to add content to a
  41commit.
  42
  43
  44OPTIONS
  45-------
  46<filepattern>...::
  47        Files to add content from.  Fileglobs (e.g. `*.c`) can
  48        be given to add all matching files.  Also a
  49        leading directory name (e.g. `dir` to add `dir/file1`
  50        and `dir/file2`) can be given to add all files in the
  51        directory, recursively.
  52
  53-n, \--dry-run::
  54        Don't actually add the file(s), just show if they exist.
  55
  56-v, \--verbose::
  57        Be verbose.
  58
  59-f::
  60        Allow adding otherwise ignored files.
  61
  62-i, \--interactive::
  63        Add modified contents in the working tree interactively to
  64        the index. Optional path arguments may be supplied to limit
  65        operation to a subset of the working tree. See ``Interactive
  66        mode'' for details.
  67
  68-p, \--patch::
  69        Similar to Interactive mode but the initial command loop is
  70        bypassed and the 'patch' subcommand is invoked using each of
  71        the specified filepatterns before exiting.
  72
  73-u::
  74        Update only files that git already knows about, staging modified
  75        content for commit and marking deleted files for removal. This
  76        is similar
  77        to what "git commit -a" does in preparation for making a commit,
  78        except that the update is limited to paths specified on the
  79        command line. If no paths are specified, all tracked files in the
  80        current directory and its subdirectories are updated.
  81
  82\--refresh::
  83        Don't add the file(s), but only refresh their stat()
  84        information in the index.
  85
  86\--ignore-errors::
  87        If some files could not be added because of errors indexing
  88        them, do not abort the operation, but continue adding the
  89        others. The command shall still exit with non-zero status.
  90
  91\--::
  92        This option can be used to separate command-line options from
  93        the list of files, (useful when filenames might be mistaken
  94        for command-line options).
  95
  96
  97Configuration
  98-------------
  99
 100The optional configuration variable 'core.excludesfile' indicates a path to a
 101file containing patterns of file names to exclude from git-add, similar to
 102$GIT_DIR/info/exclude.  Patterns in the exclude file are used in addition to
 103those in info/exclude.  See link:repository-layout.html[repository layout].
 104
 105
 106EXAMPLES
 107--------
 108
 109* Adds content from all `\*.txt` files under `Documentation` directory
 110and its subdirectories:
 111+
 112------------
 113$ git add Documentation/\\*.txt
 114------------
 115+
 116Note that the asterisk `\*` is quoted from the shell in this
 117example; this lets the command to include the files from
 118subdirectories of `Documentation/` directory.
 119
 120* Considers adding content from all git-*.sh scripts:
 121+
 122------------
 123$ git add git-*.sh
 124------------
 125+
 126Because this example lets shell expand the asterisk (i.e. you are
 127listing the files explicitly), it does not consider
 128`subdir/git-foo.sh`.
 129
 130Interactive mode
 131----------------
 132When the command enters the interactive mode, it shows the
 133output of the 'status' subcommand, and then goes into its
 134interactive command loop.
 135
 136The command loop shows the list of subcommands available, and
 137gives a prompt "What now> ".  In general, when the prompt ends
 138with a single '>', you can pick only one of the choices given
 139and type return, like this:
 140
 141------------
 142    *** Commands ***
 143      1: status       2: update       3: revert       4: add untracked
 144      5: patch        6: diff         7: quit         8: help
 145    What now> 1
 146------------
 147
 148You also could say "s" or "sta" or "status" above as long as the
 149choice is unique.
 150
 151The main command loop has 6 subcommands (plus help and quit).
 152
 153status::
 154
 155   This shows the change between HEAD and index (i.e. what will be
 156   committed if you say "git commit"), and between index and
 157   working tree files (i.e. what you could stage further before
 158   "git commit" using "git-add") for each path.  A sample output
 159   looks like this:
 160+
 161------------
 162              staged     unstaged path
 163     1:       binary      nothing foo.png
 164     2:     +403/-35        +1/-1 git-add--interactive.perl
 165------------
 166+
 167It shows that foo.png has differences from HEAD (but that is
 168binary so line count cannot be shown) and there is no
 169difference between indexed copy and the working tree
 170version (if the working tree version were also different,
 171'binary' would have been shown in place of 'nothing').  The
 172other file, git-add--interactive.perl, has 403 lines added
 173and 35 lines deleted if you commit what is in the index, but
 174working tree file has further modifications (one addition and
 175one deletion).
 176
 177update::
 178
 179   This shows the status information and gives prompt
 180   "Update>>".  When the prompt ends with double '>>', you can
 181   make more than one selection, concatenated with whitespace or
 182   comma.  Also you can say ranges.  E.g. "2-5 7,9" to choose
 183   2,3,4,5,7,9 from the list.  You can say '*' to choose
 184   everything.
 185+
 186What you chose are then highlighted with '*',
 187like this:
 188+
 189------------
 190           staged     unstaged path
 191  1:       binary      nothing foo.png
 192* 2:     +403/-35        +1/-1 git-add--interactive.perl
 193------------
 194+
 195To remove selection, prefix the input with `-`
 196like this:
 197+
 198------------
 199Update>> -2
 200------------
 201+
 202After making the selection, answer with an empty line to stage the
 203contents of working tree files for selected paths in the index.
 204
 205revert::
 206
 207  This has a very similar UI to 'update', and the staged
 208  information for selected paths are reverted to that of the
 209  HEAD version.  Reverting new paths makes them untracked.
 210
 211add untracked::
 212
 213  This has a very similar UI to 'update' and
 214  'revert', and lets you add untracked paths to the index.
 215
 216patch::
 217
 218  This lets you choose one path out of 'status' like selection.
 219  After choosing the path, it presents diff between the index
 220  and the working tree file and asks you if you want to stage
 221  the change of each hunk.  You can say:
 222
 223       y - stage this hunk
 224       n - do not stage this hunk
 225       a - stage this and all the remaining hunks in the file
 226       d - do not stage this hunk nor any of the remaining hunks in the file
 227       j - leave this hunk undecided, see next undecided hunk
 228       J - leave this hunk undecided, see next hunk
 229       k - leave this hunk undecided, see previous undecided hunk
 230       K - leave this hunk undecided, see previous hunk
 231       s - split the current hunk into smaller hunks
 232       ? - print help
 233+
 234After deciding the fate for all hunks, if there is any hunk
 235that was chosen, the index is updated with the selected hunks.
 236
 237diff::
 238
 239  This lets you review what will be committed (i.e. between
 240  HEAD and index).
 241
 242Bugs
 243----
 244The interactive mode does not work with files whose names contain
 245characters that need C-quoting.  `core.quotepath` configuration can be
 246used to work this limitation around to some degree, but backslash,
 247double-quote and control characters will still have problems.
 248
 249See Also
 250--------
 251linkgit:git-status[1]
 252linkgit:git-rm[1]
 253linkgit:git-reset[1]
 254linkgit:git-mv[1]
 255linkgit:git-commit[1]
 256linkgit:git-update-index[1]
 257
 258Author
 259------
 260Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
 261
 262Documentation
 263--------------
 264Documentation by Junio C Hamano and the git-list <git@vger.kernel.org>.
 265
 266GIT
 267---
 268Part of the linkgit:git[7] suite