Documentation / git-add.txton commit Update draft release notes for 1.6.0.2 (873358d)
   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]] [--refresh] [--ignore-errors] [--]
  13          <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--refresh::
  96        Don't add the file(s), but only refresh their stat()
  97        information in the index.
  98
  99--ignore-errors::
 100        If some files could not be added because of errors indexing
 101        them, do not abort the operation, but continue adding the
 102        others. The command shall still exit with non-zero status.
 103
 104\--::
 105        This option can be used to separate command-line options from
 106        the list of files, (useful when filenames might be mistaken
 107        for command-line options).
 108
 109
 110Configuration
 111-------------
 112
 113The optional configuration variable 'core.excludesfile' indicates a path to a
 114file containing patterns of file names to exclude from git-add, similar to
 115$GIT_DIR/info/exclude.  Patterns in the exclude file are used in addition to
 116those in info/exclude.  See linkgit:gitrepository-layout[5].
 117
 118
 119EXAMPLES
 120--------
 121
 122* Adds content from all `\*.txt` files under `Documentation` directory
 123and its subdirectories:
 124+
 125------------
 126$ git add Documentation/\\*.txt
 127------------
 128+
 129Note that the asterisk `\*` is quoted from the shell in this
 130example; this lets the command to include the files from
 131subdirectories of `Documentation/` directory.
 132
 133* Considers adding content from all git-*.sh scripts:
 134+
 135------------
 136$ git add git-*.sh
 137------------
 138+
 139Because this example lets shell expand the asterisk (i.e. you are
 140listing the files explicitly), it does not consider
 141`subdir/git-foo.sh`.
 142
 143Interactive mode
 144----------------
 145When the command enters the interactive mode, it shows the
 146output of the 'status' subcommand, and then goes into its
 147interactive command loop.
 148
 149The command loop shows the list of subcommands available, and
 150gives a prompt "What now> ".  In general, when the prompt ends
 151with a single '>', you can pick only one of the choices given
 152and type return, like this:
 153
 154------------
 155    *** Commands ***
 156      1: status       2: update       3: revert       4: add untracked
 157      5: patch        6: diff         7: quit         8: help
 158    What now> 1
 159------------
 160
 161You also could say "s" or "sta" or "status" above as long as the
 162choice is unique.
 163
 164The main command loop has 6 subcommands (plus help and quit).
 165
 166status::
 167
 168   This shows the change between HEAD and index (i.e. what will be
 169   committed if you say "git commit"), and between index and
 170   working tree files (i.e. what you could stage further before
 171   "git commit" using "git-add") for each path.  A sample output
 172   looks like this:
 173+
 174------------
 175              staged     unstaged path
 176     1:       binary      nothing foo.png
 177     2:     +403/-35        +1/-1 git-add--interactive.perl
 178------------
 179+
 180It shows that foo.png has differences from HEAD (but that is
 181binary so line count cannot be shown) and there is no
 182difference between indexed copy and the working tree
 183version (if the working tree version were also different,
 184'binary' would have been shown in place of 'nothing').  The
 185other file, git-add--interactive.perl, has 403 lines added
 186and 35 lines deleted if you commit what is in the index, but
 187working tree file has further modifications (one addition and
 188one deletion).
 189
 190update::
 191
 192   This shows the status information and gives prompt
 193   "Update>>".  When the prompt ends with double '>>', you can
 194   make more than one selection, concatenated with whitespace or
 195   comma.  Also you can say ranges.  E.g. "2-5 7,9" to choose
 196   2,3,4,5,7,9 from the list.  If the second number in a range is
 197   omitted, all remaining patches are taken.  E.g. "7-" to choose
 198   7,8,9 from the list.  You can say '*' to choose everything.
 199+
 200What you chose are then highlighted with '*',
 201like this:
 202+
 203------------
 204           staged     unstaged path
 205  1:       binary      nothing foo.png
 206* 2:     +403/-35        +1/-1 git-add--interactive.perl
 207------------
 208+
 209To remove selection, prefix the input with `-`
 210like this:
 211+
 212------------
 213Update>> -2
 214------------
 215+
 216After making the selection, answer with an empty line to stage the
 217contents of working tree files for selected paths in the index.
 218
 219revert::
 220
 221  This has a very similar UI to 'update', and the staged
 222  information for selected paths are reverted to that of the
 223  HEAD version.  Reverting new paths makes them untracked.
 224
 225add untracked::
 226
 227  This has a very similar UI to 'update' and
 228  'revert', and lets you add untracked paths to the index.
 229
 230patch::
 231
 232  This lets you choose one path out of 'status' like selection.
 233  After choosing the path, it presents diff between the index
 234  and the working tree file and asks you if you want to stage
 235  the change of each hunk.  You can say:
 236
 237       y - stage this hunk
 238       n - do not stage this hunk
 239       a - stage this and all the remaining hunks in the file
 240       d - do not stage this hunk nor any of the remaining hunks in the file
 241       j - leave this hunk undecided, see next undecided hunk
 242       J - leave this hunk undecided, see next hunk
 243       k - leave this hunk undecided, see previous undecided hunk
 244       K - leave this hunk undecided, see previous hunk
 245       s - split the current hunk into smaller hunks
 246       e - manually edit the current hunk
 247       ? - print help
 248+
 249After deciding the fate for all hunks, if there is any hunk
 250that was chosen, the index is updated with the selected hunks.
 251
 252diff::
 253
 254  This lets you review what will be committed (i.e. between
 255  HEAD and index).
 256
 257Bugs
 258----
 259The interactive mode does not work with files whose names contain
 260characters that need C-quoting.  `core.quotepath` configuration can be
 261used to work this limitation around to some degree, but backslash,
 262double-quote and control characters will still have problems.
 263
 264SEE ALSO
 265--------
 266linkgit:git-status[1]
 267linkgit:git-rm[1]
 268linkgit:git-reset[1]
 269linkgit:git-mv[1]
 270linkgit:git-commit[1]
 271linkgit:git-update-index[1]
 272
 273Author
 274------
 275Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
 276
 277Documentation
 278--------------
 279Documentation by Junio C Hamano and the git-list <git@vger.kernel.org>.
 280
 281GIT
 282---
 283Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite