Documentation / git-add.txton commit Move pack_refs() and friends into libgit (94e724a)
   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          [--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--refresh::
  90        Don't add the file(s), but only refresh their stat()
  91        information in the index.
  92
  93--ignore-errors::
  94        If some files could not be added because of errors indexing
  95        them, do not abort the operation, but continue adding the
  96        others. The command shall still exit with non-zero status.
  97
  98\--::
  99        This option can be used to separate command-line options from
 100        the list of files, (useful when filenames might be mistaken
 101        for command-line options).
 102
 103
 104Configuration
 105-------------
 106
 107The optional configuration variable 'core.excludesfile' indicates a path to a
 108file containing patterns of file names to exclude from git-add, similar to
 109$GIT_DIR/info/exclude.  Patterns in the exclude file are used in addition to
 110those in info/exclude.  See linkgit:gitrepository-layout[5][repository layout].
 111
 112
 113EXAMPLES
 114--------
 115
 116* Adds content from all `\*.txt` files under `Documentation` directory
 117and its subdirectories:
 118+
 119------------
 120$ git add Documentation/\\*.txt
 121------------
 122+
 123Note that the asterisk `\*` is quoted from the shell in this
 124example; this lets the command to include the files from
 125subdirectories of `Documentation/` directory.
 126
 127* Considers adding content from all git-*.sh scripts:
 128+
 129------------
 130$ git add git-*.sh
 131------------
 132+
 133Because this example lets shell expand the asterisk (i.e. you are
 134listing the files explicitly), it does not consider
 135`subdir/git-foo.sh`.
 136
 137Interactive mode
 138----------------
 139When the command enters the interactive mode, it shows the
 140output of the 'status' subcommand, and then goes into its
 141interactive command loop.
 142
 143The command loop shows the list of subcommands available, and
 144gives a prompt "What now> ".  In general, when the prompt ends
 145with a single '>', you can pick only one of the choices given
 146and type return, like this:
 147
 148------------
 149    *** Commands ***
 150      1: status       2: update       3: revert       4: add untracked
 151      5: patch        6: diff         7: quit         8: help
 152    What now> 1
 153------------
 154
 155You also could say "s" or "sta" or "status" above as long as the
 156choice is unique.
 157
 158The main command loop has 6 subcommands (plus help and quit).
 159
 160status::
 161
 162   This shows the change between HEAD and index (i.e. what will be
 163   committed if you say "git commit"), and between index and
 164   working tree files (i.e. what you could stage further before
 165   "git commit" using "git-add") for each path.  A sample output
 166   looks like this:
 167+
 168------------
 169              staged     unstaged path
 170     1:       binary      nothing foo.png
 171     2:     +403/-35        +1/-1 git-add--interactive.perl
 172------------
 173+
 174It shows that foo.png has differences from HEAD (but that is
 175binary so line count cannot be shown) and there is no
 176difference between indexed copy and the working tree
 177version (if the working tree version were also different,
 178'binary' would have been shown in place of 'nothing').  The
 179other file, git-add--interactive.perl, has 403 lines added
 180and 35 lines deleted if you commit what is in the index, but
 181working tree file has further modifications (one addition and
 182one deletion).
 183
 184update::
 185
 186   This shows the status information and gives prompt
 187   "Update>>".  When the prompt ends with double '>>', you can
 188   make more than one selection, concatenated with whitespace or
 189   comma.  Also you can say ranges.  E.g. "2-5 7,9" to choose
 190   2,3,4,5,7,9 from the list.  You can say '*' to choose
 191   everything.
 192+
 193What you chose are then highlighted with '*',
 194like this:
 195+
 196------------
 197           staged     unstaged path
 198  1:       binary      nothing foo.png
 199* 2:     +403/-35        +1/-1 git-add--interactive.perl
 200------------
 201+
 202To remove selection, prefix the input with `-`
 203like this:
 204+
 205------------
 206Update>> -2
 207------------
 208+
 209After making the selection, answer with an empty line to stage the
 210contents of working tree files for selected paths in the index.
 211
 212revert::
 213
 214  This has a very similar UI to 'update', and the staged
 215  information for selected paths are reverted to that of the
 216  HEAD version.  Reverting new paths makes them untracked.
 217
 218add untracked::
 219
 220  This has a very similar UI to 'update' and
 221  'revert', and lets you add untracked paths to the index.
 222
 223patch::
 224
 225  This lets you choose one path out of 'status' like selection.
 226  After choosing the path, it presents diff between the index
 227  and the working tree file and asks you if you want to stage
 228  the change of each hunk.  You can say:
 229
 230       y - stage this hunk
 231       n - do not stage this hunk
 232       a - stage this and all the remaining hunks in the file
 233       d - do not stage this hunk nor any of the remaining hunks in the file
 234       j - leave this hunk undecided, see next undecided hunk
 235       J - leave this hunk undecided, see next hunk
 236       k - leave this hunk undecided, see previous undecided hunk
 237       K - leave this hunk undecided, see previous hunk
 238       s - split the current hunk into smaller hunks
 239       ? - print help
 240+
 241After deciding the fate for all hunks, if there is any hunk
 242that was chosen, the index is updated with the selected hunks.
 243
 244diff::
 245
 246  This lets you review what will be committed (i.e. between
 247  HEAD and index).
 248
 249Bugs
 250----
 251The interactive mode does not work with files whose names contain
 252characters that need C-quoting.  `core.quotepath` configuration can be
 253used to work this limitation around to some degree, but backslash,
 254double-quote and control characters will still have problems.
 255
 256SEE ALSO
 257--------
 258linkgit:git-status[1]
 259linkgit:git-rm[1]
 260linkgit:git-reset[1]
 261linkgit:git-mv[1]
 262linkgit:git-commit[1]
 263linkgit:git-update-index[1]
 264
 265Author
 266------
 267Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
 268
 269Documentation
 270--------------
 271Documentation by Junio C Hamano and the git-list <git@vger.kernel.org>.
 272
 273GIT
 274---
 275Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite