NAME
git-add - Add file contents to the index
SYNOPSIS
git add [-n] [-v] [--force | -f] [--interactive | -i] [--patch | -p]
[--edit | -e] [--all | [--update | -u]] [--intent-to-add | -N]
[--refresh] [--ignore-errors] [--] [<filepattern>...]
DESCRIPTION
This command updates the index using the current content found in the
working tree, to prepare the content staged for the next commit. It
typically adds the current content of existing paths as a whole, but
with some options it can also be used to add content with only part of
the changes made to the working tree files applied, or remove paths
that do not exist in the working tree anymore.
The "index" holds a snapshot of the content of the working tree, and it
is this snapshot that is taken as the contents of the next commit. Thus
after making any changes to the working directory, and before running
the commit command, you must use the add command to add any new or
modified files to the index.
This command can be performed multiple times before a commit. It only
adds the content of the specified file(s) at the time the add command
is run; if you want subsequent changes included in the next commit,
then you must run git add again to add the new content to the index.
The git status command can be used to obtain a summary of which files
have changes that are staged for the next commit.
The git add command will not add ignored files by default. If any
ignored files were explicitly specified on the command line, git add
will fail with a list of ignored files. Ignored files reached by
directory recursion or filename globbing performed by Git (quote your
globs before the shell) will be silently ignored. The git add command
can be used to add ignored files with the -f (force) option.
Please see git-commit(1) for alternative ways to add content to a
commit.
OPTIONS
<filepattern>...
Files to add content from. Fileglobs (e.g. *.c) can be given to
add all matching files. Also a leading directory name (e.g. dir to
add dir/file1 and dir/file2) can be given to add all files in the
directory, recursively.
-n, --dry-run
Don't actually add the file(s), just show if they exist.
-v, --verbose
Be verbose.
-f, --force
Allow adding otherwise ignored files.
-i, --interactive
Add modified contents in the working tree interactively to the
index. Optional path arguments may be supplied to limit operation
to a subset of the working tree. See "Interactive mode" for
details.
-p, --patch
Interactively choose hunks of patch between the index and the work
tree and add them to the index. This gives the user a chance to
review the difference before adding modified contents to the index.
This effectively runs add --interactive, but bypasses the initial
command menu and directly jumps to the patch subcommand. See
"Interactive mode" for details.
-e, --edit
Open the diff vs. the index in an editor and let the user edit it.
After the editor was closed, adjust the hunk headers and apply the
patch to the index.
NOTE: Obviously, if you change anything else than the first
character on lines beginning with a space or a minus, the patch
will no longer apply.
-u, --update
Only match <filepattern> against already tracked files in the index
rather than the working tree. That means that it will never stage
new files, but that it will stage modified new contents of tracked
files and that it will remove files from the index if the
corresponding files in the working tree have been removed.
If no <filepattern> is given, default to "."; in other words,
update all tracked files in the current directory and its
subdirectories.
-A, --all
Like -u, but match <filepattern> against files in the working tree
in addition to the index. That means that it will find new files as
well as staging modified content and removing files that are no
longer in the working tree.
-N, --intent-to-add
Record only the fact that the path will be added later. An entry
for the path is placed in the index with no content. This is useful
for, among other things, showing the unstaged content of such files
with git diff and committing them with git commit -a.
--refresh
Don't add the file(s), but only refresh their stat() information in
the index.
--ignore-errors
If some files could not be added because of errors indexing them,
do not abort the operation, but continue adding the others. The
command shall still exit with non-zero status.
--
This option can be used to separate command-line options from the
list of files, (useful when filenames might be mistaken for
command-line options).
CONFIGURATION
The optional configuration variable core.excludesfile indicates a path
to a file containing patterns of file names to exclude from git-add,
similar to $GIT_DIR/info/exclude. Patterns in the exclude file are used
in addition to those in info/exclude. See gitrepository-layout(5).
EXAMPLES
o Adds content from all \*.txt files under Documentation directory
and its subdirectories:
$ git add Documentation/\*.txt
Note that the asterisk \* is quoted from the shell in this example;
this lets the command include the files from subdirectories of
Documentation/ directory.
o Considers adding content from all git-*.sh scripts:
$ git add git-*.sh
Because this example lets the shell expand the asterisk (i.e. you
are listing the files explicitly), it does not consider
subdir/git-foo.sh.
INTERACTIVE MODE
When the command enters the interactive mode, it shows the output of
the status subcommand, and then goes into its interactive command loop.
The command loop shows the list of subcommands available, and gives a
prompt "What now> ". In general, when the prompt ends with a single >,
you can pick only one of the choices given and type return, like this:
*** Commands ***
1: status 2: update 3: revert 4: add untracked
5: patch 6: diff 7: quit 8: help
What now> 1
You also could say s or sta or status above as long as the choice is
unique.
The main command loop has 6 subcommands (plus help and quit).
status
This shows the change between HEAD and index (i.e. what will be
committed if you say git commit), and between index and working
tree files (i.e. what you could stage further before git commit
using git add) for each path. A sample output looks like this:
staged unstaged path
1: binary nothing foo.png
2: +403/-35 +1/-1 git-add--interactive.perl
It shows that foo.png has differences from HEAD (but that is binary
so line count cannot be shown) and there is no difference between
indexed copy and the working tree version (if the working tree
version were also different, binary would have been shown in place
of nothing). The other file, git-add--interactive.perl, has 403
lines added and 35 lines deleted if you commit what is in the
index, but working tree file has further modifications (one
addition and one deletion).
update
This shows the status information and issues an "Update>>" prompt.
When the prompt ends with double >>, you can make more than one
selection, concatenated with whitespace or comma. Also you can say
ranges. E.g. "2-5 7,9" to choose 2,3,4,5,7,9 from the list. If the
second number in a range is omitted, all remaining patches are
taken. E.g. "7-" to choose 7,8,9 from the list. You can say * to
choose everything.
What you chose are then highlighted with *, like this:
staged unstaged path
1: binary nothing foo.png
* 2: +403/-35 +1/-1 git-add--interactive.perl
To remove selection, prefix the input with - like this:
Update>> -2
After making the selection, answer with an empty line to stage the
contents of working tree files for selected paths in the index.
revert
This has a very similar UI to update, and the staged information
for selected paths are reverted to that of the HEAD version.
Reverting new paths makes them untracked.
add untracked
This has a very similar UI to update and revert, and lets you add
untracked paths to the index.
patch
This lets you choose one path out of a status like selection. After
choosing the path, it presents the diff between the index and the
working tree file and asks you if you want to stage the change of
each hunk. You can say:
y - stage this hunk
n - do not stage this hunk
q - quit, do not stage this hunk nor any of the remaining ones
a - stage this and all the remaining hunks in the file
d - do not stage this hunk nor any of the remaining hunks in the file
g - select a hunk to go to
/ - search for a hunk matching the given regex
j - leave this hunk undecided, see next undecided hunk
J - leave this hunk undecided, see next hunk
k - leave this hunk undecided, see previous undecided hunk
K - leave this hunk undecided, see previous hunk
s - split the current hunk into smaller hunks
e - manually edit the current hunk
? - print help
After deciding the fate for all hunks, if there is any hunk that
was chosen, the index is updated with the selected hunks.
diff
This lets you review what will be committed (i.e. between HEAD and
index).
SEE ALSO
git-status(1) git-rm(1) git-reset(1) git-mv(1) git-commit(1) git-
update-index(1)
AUTHOR
Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org[1]>
DOCUMENTATION
Documentation by Junio C Hamano and the git-list
<git@vger.kernel.org[2]>.
GIT
Part of the git(1) suite
NOTES
1. torvalds@osdl.org
mailto:torvalds@osdl.org
2. git@vger.kernel.org
mailto:git@vger.kernel.org