Documentation / git-add.txton commit Allow tracking branches to set up rebase by default. (c998ae9)
   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          [--] <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\--::
  87        This option can be used to separate command-line options from
  88        the list of files, (useful when filenames might be mistaken
  89        for command-line options).
  90
  91
  92Configuration
  93-------------
  94
  95The optional configuration variable 'core.excludesfile' indicates a path to a
  96file containing patterns of file names to exclude from git-add, similar to
  97$GIT_DIR/info/exclude.  Patterns in the exclude file are used in addition to
  98those in info/exclude.  See link:repository-layout.html[repository layout].
  99
 100
 101EXAMPLES
 102--------
 103
 104* Adds content from all `\*.txt` files under `Documentation` directory
 105and its subdirectories:
 106+
 107------------
 108$ git add Documentation/\\*.txt
 109------------
 110+
 111Note that the asterisk `\*` is quoted from the shell in this
 112example; this lets the command to include the files from
 113subdirectories of `Documentation/` directory.
 114
 115* Considers adding content from all git-*.sh scripts:
 116+
 117------------
 118$ git add git-*.sh
 119------------
 120+
 121Because this example lets shell expand the asterisk (i.e. you are
 122listing the files explicitly), it does not consider
 123`subdir/git-foo.sh`.
 124
 125Interactive mode
 126----------------
 127When the command enters the interactive mode, it shows the
 128output of the 'status' subcommand, and then goes into its
 129interactive command loop.
 130
 131The command loop shows the list of subcommands available, and
 132gives a prompt "What now> ".  In general, when the prompt ends
 133with a single '>', you can pick only one of the choices given
 134and type return, like this:
 135
 136------------
 137    *** Commands ***
 138      1: status       2: update       3: revert       4: add untracked
 139      5: patch        6: diff         7: quit         8: help
 140    What now> 1
 141------------
 142
 143You also could say "s" or "sta" or "status" above as long as the
 144choice is unique.
 145
 146The main command loop has 6 subcommands (plus help and quit).
 147
 148status::
 149
 150   This shows the change between HEAD and index (i.e. what will be
 151   committed if you say "git commit"), and between index and
 152   working tree files (i.e. what you could stage further before
 153   "git commit" using "git-add") for each path.  A sample output
 154   looks like this:
 155+
 156------------
 157              staged     unstaged path
 158     1:       binary      nothing foo.png
 159     2:     +403/-35        +1/-1 git-add--interactive.perl
 160------------
 161+
 162It shows that foo.png has differences from HEAD (but that is
 163binary so line count cannot be shown) and there is no
 164difference between indexed copy and the working tree
 165version (if the working tree version were also different,
 166'binary' would have been shown in place of 'nothing').  The
 167other file, git-add--interactive.perl, has 403 lines added
 168and 35 lines deleted if you commit what is in the index, but
 169working tree file has further modifications (one addition and
 170one deletion).
 171
 172update::
 173
 174   This shows the status information and gives prompt
 175   "Update>>".  When the prompt ends with double '>>', you can
 176   make more than one selection, concatenated with whitespace or
 177   comma.  Also you can say ranges.  E.g. "2-5 7,9" to choose
 178   2,3,4,5,7,9 from the list.  You can say '*' to choose
 179   everything.
 180+
 181What you chose are then highlighted with '*',
 182like this:
 183+
 184------------
 185           staged     unstaged path
 186  1:       binary      nothing foo.png
 187* 2:     +403/-35        +1/-1 git-add--interactive.perl
 188------------
 189+
 190To remove selection, prefix the input with `-`
 191like this:
 192+
 193------------
 194Update>> -2
 195------------
 196+
 197After making the selection, answer with an empty line to stage the
 198contents of working tree files for selected paths in the index.
 199
 200revert::
 201
 202  This has a very similar UI to 'update', and the staged
 203  information for selected paths are reverted to that of the
 204  HEAD version.  Reverting new paths makes them untracked.
 205
 206add untracked::
 207
 208  This has a very similar UI to 'update' and
 209  'revert', and lets you add untracked paths to the index.
 210
 211patch::
 212
 213  This lets you choose one path out of 'status' like selection.
 214  After choosing the path, it presents diff between the index
 215  and the working tree file and asks you if you want to stage
 216  the change of each hunk.  You can say:
 217
 218       y - stage this hunk
 219       n - do not stage this hunk
 220       a - stage this and all the remaining hunks in the file
 221       d - do not stage this hunk nor any of the remaining hunks in the file
 222       j - leave this hunk undecided, see next undecided hunk
 223       J - leave this hunk undecided, see next hunk
 224       k - leave this hunk undecided, see previous undecided hunk
 225       K - leave this hunk undecided, see previous hunk
 226       s - split the current hunk into smaller hunks
 227       ? - print help
 228+
 229After deciding the fate for all hunks, if there is any hunk
 230that was chosen, the index is updated with the selected hunks.
 231
 232diff::
 233
 234  This lets you review what will be committed (i.e. between
 235  HEAD and index).
 236
 237Bugs
 238----
 239The interactive mode does not work with files whose names contain
 240characters that need C-quoting.  `core.quotepath` configuration can be
 241used to work this limitation around to some degree, but backslash,
 242double-quote and control characters will still have problems.
 243
 244See Also
 245--------
 246linkgit:git-status[1]
 247linkgit:git-rm[1]
 248linkgit:git-reset[1]
 249linkgit:git-mv[1]
 250linkgit:git-commit[1]
 251linkgit:git-update-index[1]
 252
 253Author
 254------
 255Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
 256
 257Documentation
 258--------------
 259Documentation by Junio C Hamano and the git-list <git@vger.kernel.org>.
 260
 261GIT
 262---
 263Part of the linkgit:git[7] suite