Documentation / git-commit.txton commit diff --relative: output paths as relative to the current subdirectory (cd676a5)
   1git-commit(1)
   2=============
   3
   4NAME
   5----
   6git-commit - Record changes to the repository
   7
   8SYNOPSIS
   9--------
  10[verse]
  11'git-commit' [-a | --interactive] [-s] [-v] [-u]
  12           [(-c | -C) <commit> | -F <file> | -m <msg> | --amend]
  13           [--allow-empty] [--no-verify] [-e] [--author <author>]
  14           [--cleanup=<mode>] [--] [[-i | -o ]<file>...]
  15
  16DESCRIPTION
  17-----------
  18Use 'git commit' to store the current contents of the index in a new
  19commit along with a log message describing the changes you have made.
  20
  21The content to be added can be specified in several ways:
  22
  231. by using linkgit:git-add[1] to incrementally "add" changes to the
  24   index before using the 'commit' command (Note: even modified
  25   files must be "added");
  26
  272. by using linkgit:git-rm[1] to remove files from the working tree
  28   and the index, again before using the 'commit' command;
  29
  303. by listing files as arguments to the 'commit' command, in which
  31   case the commit will ignore changes staged in the index, and instead
  32   record the current content of the listed files;
  33
  344. by using the -a switch with the 'commit' command to automatically
  35   "add" changes from all known files (i.e. all files that are already
  36   listed in the index) and to automatically "rm" files in the index
  37   that have been removed from the working tree, and then perform the
  38   actual commit;
  39
  405. by using the --interactive switch with the 'commit' command to decide one
  41   by one which files should be part of the commit, before finalizing the
  42   operation.  Currently, this is done by invoking `git-add --interactive`.
  43
  44The linkgit:git-status[1] command can be used to obtain a
  45summary of what is included by any of the above for the next
  46commit by giving the same set of parameters you would give to
  47this command.
  48
  49If you make a commit and then found a mistake immediately after
  50that, you can recover from it with linkgit:git-reset[1].
  51
  52
  53OPTIONS
  54-------
  55-a|--all::
  56        Tell the command to automatically stage files that have
  57        been modified and deleted, but new files you have not
  58        told git about are not affected.
  59
  60-c or -C <commit>::
  61        Take existing commit object, and reuse the log message
  62        and the authorship information (including the timestamp)
  63        when creating the commit.  With '-C', the editor is not
  64        invoked; with '-c' the user can further edit the commit
  65        message.
  66
  67-F <file>::
  68        Take the commit message from the given file.  Use '-' to
  69        read the message from the standard input.
  70
  71--author <author>::
  72        Override the author name used in the commit.  Use
  73        `A U Thor <author@example.com>` format.
  74
  75-m <msg>|--message=<msg>::
  76        Use the given <msg> as the commit message.
  77
  78-t <file>|--template=<file>::
  79        Use the contents of the given file as the initial version
  80        of the commit message. The editor is invoked and you can
  81        make subsequent changes. If a message is specified using
  82        the `-m` or `-F` options, this option has no effect. This
  83        overrides the `commit.template` configuration variable.
  84
  85-s|--signoff::
  86        Add Signed-off-by line at the end of the commit message.
  87
  88--no-verify::
  89        This option bypasses the pre-commit and commit-msg hooks.
  90        See also link:hooks.html[hooks].
  91
  92--allow-empty::
  93        Usually recording a commit that has the exact same tree as its
  94        sole parent commit is a mistake, and the command prevents you
  95        from making such a commit.  This option bypasses the safety, and
  96        is primarily for use by foreign scm interface scripts.
  97
  98--cleanup=<mode>::
  99        This option sets how the commit message is cleaned up.
 100        The  '<mode>' can be one of 'verbatim', 'whitespace', 'strip',
 101        and 'default'. The 'default' mode will strip leading and
 102        trailing empty lines and #commentary from the commit message
 103        only if the message is to be edited. Otherwise only whitespace
 104        removed. The 'verbatim' mode does not change message at all,
 105        'whitespace' removes just leading/trailing whitespace lines
 106        and 'strip' removes both whitespace and commentary.
 107
 108-e|--edit::
 109        The message taken from file with `-F`, command line with
 110        `-m`, and from file with `-C` are usually used as the
 111        commit log message unmodified.  This option lets you
 112        further edit the message taken from these sources.
 113
 114--amend::
 115
 116        Used to amend the tip of the current branch. Prepare the tree
 117        object you would want to replace the latest commit as usual
 118        (this includes the usual -i/-o and explicit paths), and the
 119        commit log editor is seeded with the commit message from the
 120        tip of the current branch. The commit you create replaces the
 121        current tip -- if it was a merge, it will have the parents of
 122        the current tip as parents -- so the current top commit is
 123        discarded.
 124+
 125--
 126It is a rough equivalent for:
 127------
 128        $ git reset --soft HEAD^
 129        $ ... do something else to come up with the right tree ...
 130        $ git commit -c ORIG_HEAD
 131
 132------
 133but can be used to amend a merge commit.
 134--
 135
 136-i|--include::
 137        Before making a commit out of staged contents so far,
 138        stage the contents of paths given on the command line
 139        as well.  This is usually not what you want unless you
 140        are concluding a conflicted merge.
 141
 142-u|--untracked-files::
 143        Show all untracked files, also those in uninteresting
 144        directories, in the "Untracked files:" section of commit
 145        message template.  Without this option only its name and
 146        a trailing slash are displayed for each untracked
 147        directory.
 148
 149-v|--verbose::
 150        Show unified diff between the HEAD commit and what
 151        would be committed at the bottom of the commit message
 152        template.  Note that this diff output doesn't have its
 153        lines prefixed with '#'.
 154
 155-q|--quiet::
 156        Suppress commit summary message.
 157
 158\--::
 159        Do not interpret any more arguments as options.
 160
 161<file>...::
 162        When files are given on the command line, the command
 163        commits the contents of the named files, without
 164        recording the changes already staged.  The contents of
 165        these files are also staged for the next commit on top
 166        of what have been staged before.
 167
 168
 169EXAMPLES
 170--------
 171When recording your own work, the contents of modified files in
 172your working tree are temporarily stored to a staging area
 173called the "index" with linkgit:git-add[1].  A file can be
 174reverted back, only in the index but not in the working tree,
 175to that of the last commit with `git-reset HEAD -- <file>`,
 176which effectively reverts `git-add` and prevents the changes to
 177this file from participating in the next commit.  After building
 178the state to be committed incrementally with these commands,
 179`git commit` (without any pathname parameter) is used to record what
 180has been staged so far.  This is the most basic form of the
 181command.  An example:
 182
 183------------
 184$ edit hello.c
 185$ git rm goodbye.c
 186$ git add hello.c
 187$ git commit
 188------------
 189
 190Instead of staging files after each individual change, you can
 191tell `git commit` to notice the changes to the files whose
 192contents are tracked in
 193your working tree and do corresponding `git add` and `git rm`
 194for you.  That is, this example does the same as the earlier
 195example if there is no other change in your working tree:
 196
 197------------
 198$ edit hello.c
 199$ rm goodbye.c
 200$ git commit -a
 201------------
 202
 203The command `git commit -a` first looks at your working tree,
 204notices that you have modified hello.c and removed goodbye.c,
 205and performs necessary `git add` and `git rm` for you.
 206
 207After staging changes to many files, you can alter the order the
 208changes are recorded in, by giving pathnames to `git commit`.
 209When pathnames are given, the command makes a commit that
 210only records the changes made to the named paths:
 211
 212------------
 213$ edit hello.c hello.h
 214$ git add hello.c hello.h
 215$ edit Makefile
 216$ git commit Makefile
 217------------
 218
 219This makes a commit that records the modification to `Makefile`.
 220The changes staged for `hello.c` and `hello.h` are not included
 221in the resulting commit.  However, their changes are not lost --
 222they are still staged and merely held back.  After the above
 223sequence, if you do:
 224
 225------------
 226$ git commit
 227------------
 228
 229this second commit would record the changes to `hello.c` and
 230`hello.h` as expected.
 231
 232After a merge (initiated by either linkgit:git-merge[1] or
 233linkgit:git-pull[1]) stops because of conflicts, cleanly merged
 234paths are already staged to be committed for you, and paths that
 235conflicted are left in unmerged state.  You would have to first
 236check which paths are conflicting with linkgit:git-status[1]
 237and after fixing them manually in your working tree, you would
 238stage the result as usual with linkgit:git-add[1]:
 239
 240------------
 241$ git status | grep unmerged
 242unmerged: hello.c
 243$ edit hello.c
 244$ git add hello.c
 245------------
 246
 247After resolving conflicts and staging the result, `git ls-files -u`
 248would stop mentioning the conflicted path.  When you are done,
 249run `git commit` to finally record the merge:
 250
 251------------
 252$ git commit
 253------------
 254
 255As with the case to record your own changes, you can use `-a`
 256option to save typing.  One difference is that during a merge
 257resolution, you cannot use `git commit` with pathnames to
 258alter the order the changes are committed, because the merge
 259should be recorded as a single commit.  In fact, the command
 260refuses to run when given pathnames (but see `-i` option).
 261
 262
 263DISCUSSION
 264----------
 265
 266Though not required, it's a good idea to begin the commit message
 267with a single short (less than 50 character) line summarizing the
 268change, followed by a blank line and then a more thorough description.
 269Tools that turn commits into email, for example, use the first line
 270on the Subject: line and the rest of the commit in the body.
 271
 272include::i18n.txt[]
 273
 274ENVIRONMENT AND CONFIGURATION VARIABLES
 275---------------------------------------
 276The editor used to edit the commit log message will be chosen from the
 277GIT_EDITOR environment variable, the core.editor configuration variable, the
 278VISUAL environment variable, or the EDITOR environment variable (in that
 279order).
 280
 281HOOKS
 282-----
 283This command can run `commit-msg`, `pre-commit`, and
 284`post-commit` hooks.  See link:hooks.html[hooks] for more
 285information.
 286
 287
 288SEE ALSO
 289--------
 290linkgit:git-add[1],
 291linkgit:git-rm[1],
 292linkgit:git-mv[1],
 293linkgit:git-merge[1],
 294linkgit:git-commit-tree[1]
 295
 296Author
 297------
 298Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org> and
 299Junio C Hamano <junkio@cox.net>
 300
 301
 302GIT
 303---
 304Part of the linkgit:git[7] suite