1git-commit(1) 2============= 3 4NAME 5---- 6git-commit - Record your changes 7 8SYNOPSIS 9-------- 10[verse] 11'git-commit' [-a] [-s] [-v] [(-c | -C) <commit> | -F <file> | -m <msg>] 12 [-e] [--author <author>] [--] [[-i | -o ]<file>...] 13 14DESCRIPTION 15----------- 16Updates the index file for given paths, or all modified files if 17'-a' is specified, and makes a commit object. The command 18VISUAL and EDITOR environment variables to edit the commit log 19message. 20 21This command can run `commit-msg`, `pre-commit`, and 22`post-commit` hooks. See link:hooks.html[hooks] for more 23information. 24 25OPTIONS 26------- 27-a|--all:: 28 Update all paths in the index file. This flag notices 29 files that have been modified and deleted, but new files 30 you have not told git about are not affected. 31 32-c or -C <commit>:: 33 Take existing commit object, and reuse the log message 34 and the authorship information (including the timestamp) 35 when creating the commit. With '-C', the editor is not 36 invoked; with '-c' the user can further edit the commit 37 message. 38 39-F <file>:: 40 Take the commit message from the given file. Use '-' to 41 read the message from the standard input. 42 43--author <author>:: 44 Override the author name used in the commit. Use 45 `A U Thor <author@example.com>` format. 46 47-m <msg>:: 48 Use the given <msg> as the commit message. 49 50-s|--signoff:: 51 Add Signed-off-by line at the end of the commit message. 52 53-v|--verify:: 54 Look for suspicious lines the commit introduces, and 55 abort committing if there is one. The definition of 56 'suspicious lines' is currently the lines that has 57 trailing whitespaces, and the lines whose indentation 58 has a SP character immediately followed by a TAB 59 character. This is the default. 60 61-n|--no-verify:: 62 The opposite of `--verify`. 63 64-e|--edit:: 65 The message taken from file with `-F`, command line with 66 `-m`, and from file with `-C` are usually used as the 67 commit log message unmodified. This option lets you 68 further edit the message taken from these sources. 69 70-i|--include:: 71 Instead of committing only the files specified on the 72 command line, update them in the index file and then 73 commit the whole index. This is the traditional 74 behaviour. 75 76-o|--only:: 77 Commit only the files specified on the command line. 78 This format cannot be used during a merge, nor when the 79 index and the latest commit does not match on the 80 specified paths to avoid confusion. 81 82--:: 83 Do not interpret any more arguments as options. 84 85<file>...:: 86 Files to be committed. The meaning of these is 87 different between `--include` and `--only`. Without 88 either, it defaults `--include` semantics. 89 90If you make a commit and then found a mistake immediately after 91that, you can recover from it with gitlink:git-reset[1]. 92 93 94WARNING 95------- 96 97The 1.2.0 and its maintenance series 1.2.X will keep the 98traditional `--include` semantics as the default when neither 99`--only` nor `--include` is specified and `paths...` are given. 100This *will* change during the development towards 1.3.0 in the 101'master' branch of `git.git` repository. If you are using this 102command in your scripts, and you depend on the traditional 103`--include` semantics, please update them to explicitly ask for 104`--include` semantics. Also if you are used to making partial 105commit using `--include` semantics, please train your fingers to 106say `git commit --include paths...` (or `git commit -i paths...`). 107 108 109Discussion 110---------- 111 112`git commit` without _any_ parameter commits the tree structure 113recorded by the current index file. This is a whole-tree commit 114even the command is invoked from a subdirectory. 115 116`git commit --include paths...` is equivalent to 117 118 git update-index --remove paths... 119 git commit 120 121That is, update the specified paths to the index and then commit 122the whole tree. 123 124`git commit --only paths...` largely bypasses the index file and 125commits only the changes made to the specified paths. It has 126however several safety valves to prevent confusion. 127 128. It refuses to run during a merge (i.e. when 129 `$GIT_DIR/MERGE_HEAD` exists), and reminds trained git users 130 that the traditional semantics now needs -i flag. 131 132. It refuses to run if named `paths...` are different in HEAD 133 and the index (ditto about reminding). Added paths are OK. 134 This is because an earlier `git diff` (not `git diff HEAD`) 135 would have shown the differences since the last `git 136 update-index paths...` to the user, and an inexperienced user 137 may mistakenly think that the changes between the index and 138 the HEAD (i.e. earlier changes made before the last `git 139 update-index paths...` was done) are not being committed. 140 141. It reads HEAD commit into a temporary index file, updates the 142 specified `paths...` and makes a commit. At the same time, 143 the real index file is also updated with the same `paths...`. 144 145`git commit --all` updates the index file with _all_ changes to 146the working tree, and makes a whole-tree commit, regardless of 147which subdirectory the command is invoked in. 148 149 150Author 151------ 152Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org> and 153Junio C Hamano <junkio@cox.net> 154 155 156GIT 157--- 158Part of the gitlink:git[7] suite