--------
[verse]
'git-checkout-index' [-u] [-q] [-a] [-f] [-n] [--prefix=<string>]
- [--stage=<number>] [--] <file>...
+ [--stage=<number>|all]
+ [--temp]
+ [-z] [--stdin]
+ [--] [<file>]\*
DESCRIPTION
-----------
When creating files, prepend <string> (usually a directory
including a trailing /)
---stage=<number>::
+--stage=<number>|all::
Instead of checking out unmerged entries, copy out the
files from named stage. <number> must be between 1 and 3.
+ Note: --stage=all automatically implies --temp.
---::
+--temp::
+ Instead of copying the files to the working directory
+ write the content to temporary files. The temporary name
+ associations will be written to stdout.
+
+--stdin::
+ Instead of taking list of paths from the command line,
+ read list of paths from the standard input. Paths are
+ separated by LF (i.e. one path per line) by default.
+
+-z::
+ Only meaningful with `--stdin`; paths are separated with
+ NUL character instead of LF.
+
+\--::
Do not interpret any more arguments as options.
The order of the flags used to matter, but not anymore.
which will force all existing `*.h` files to be replaced with their
cached copies. If an empty command line implied "all", then this would
-force-refresh everything in the index, which was not the point.
+force-refresh everything in the index, which was not the point. But
+since git-checkout-index accepts --stdin it would be faster to use:
+
+----------------
+$ find . -name '*.h' -print0 | git-checkout-index -f -z --stdin
+----------------
The `--` is just a good idea when you know the rest will be filenames;
it will prevent problems with a filename of, for example, `-a`.
Using `--` is probably a good policy in scripts.
+Using --temp or --stage=all
+---------------------------
+When `--temp` is used (or implied by `--stage=all`)
+`git-checkout-index` will create a temporary file for each index
+entry being checked out. The index will not be updated with stat
+information. These options can be useful if the caller needs all
+stages of all unmerged entries so that the unmerged files can be
+processed by an external merge tool.
+
+A listing will be written to stdout providing the association of
+temporary file names to tracked path names. The listing format
+has two variations:
+
+ . tempname TAB path RS
++
+The first format is what gets used when `--stage` is omitted or
+is not `--stage=all`. The field tempname is the temporary file
+name holding the file content and path is the tracked path name in
+the index. Only the requested entries are output.
+
+ . stage1temp SP stage2temp SP stage3tmp TAB path RS
++
+The second format is what gets used when `--stage=all`. The three
+stage temporary fields (stage1temp, stage2temp, stage3temp) list the
+name of the temporary file if there is a stage entry in the index
+or `.` if there is no stage entry. Paths which only have a stage 0
+entry will always be omitted from the output.
+
+In both formats RS (the record separator) is newline by default
+but will be the null byte if -z was passed on the command line.
+The temporary file names are always safe strings; they will never
+contain directory separators or whitespace characters. The path
+field is always relative to the current directory and the temporary
+file names are always relative to the top level directory.
+
+If the object being copied out to a temporary file is a symbolic
+link the content of the link will be written to a normal file. It is
+up to the end-user or the Porcelain to make use of this information.
+
+
EXAMPLES
--------
To update and refresh only the files already checked out::