6 git-add - Add file contents to the index
11 'git-add' [-n] [-v] [-f] [--interactive | -i] [--patch | -p] [-u] [--refresh]
16 This command adds the current content of new or modified files to the
17 index, thus staging that content for inclusion in the next commit.
19 The "index" holds a snapshot of the content of the working tree, and it
20 is this snapshot that is taken as the contents of the next commit. Thus
21 after making any changes to the working directory, and before running
22 the commit command, you must use the 'add' command to add any new or
23 modified files to the index.
25 This command can be performed multiple times before a commit. It only
26 adds the content of the specified file(s) at the time the add command is
27 run; if you want subsequent changes included in the next commit, then
28 you must run 'git add' again to add the new content to the index.
30 The 'git status' command can be used to obtain a summary of which
31 files have changes that are staged for the next commit.
33 The 'git add' command will not add ignored files by default. If any
34 ignored files were explicitly specified on the command line, 'git add'
35 will fail with a list of ignored files. Ignored files reached by
36 directory recursion or filename globbing performed by Git (quote your
37 globs before the shell) will be silently ignored. The 'add' command can
38 be used to add ignored files with the `-f` (force) option.
40 Please see linkgit:git-commit[1] for alternative ways to add content to a
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.
54 Don't actually add the file(s), just show if they exist.
60 Allow adding otherwise ignored files.
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
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.
74 Update only files that git already knows about. This is similar
75 to what "git commit -a" does in preparation for making a commit,
76 except that the update is limited to paths specified on the
77 command line. If no paths are specified, all tracked files in the
78 current directory and its subdirectories are updated.
81 Don't add the file(s), but only refresh their stat()
82 information in the index.
85 This option can be used to separate command-line options from
86 the list of files, (useful when filenames might be mistaken
87 for command-line options).
93 The optional configuration variable 'core.excludesfile' indicates a path to a
94 file containing patterns of file names to exclude from git-add, similar to
95 $GIT_DIR/info/exclude. Patterns in the exclude file are used in addition to
96 those in info/exclude. See link:repository-layout.html[repository layout].
101 git-add Documentation/\\*.txt::
103 Adds content from all `\*.txt` files under `Documentation`
104 directory and its subdirectories.
106 Note that the asterisk `\*` is quoted from the shell in this
107 example; this lets the command to include the files from
108 subdirectories of `Documentation/` directory.
112 Considers adding content from all git-*.sh scripts.
113 Because this example lets shell expand the asterisk
114 (i.e. you are listing the files explicitly), it does not
115 consider `subdir/git-foo.sh`.
119 When the command enters the interactive mode, it shows the
120 output of the 'status' subcommand, and then goes into its
121 interactive command loop.
123 The command loop shows the list of subcommands available, and
124 gives a prompt "What now> ". In general, when the prompt ends
125 with a single '>', you can pick only one of the choices given
126 and type return, like this:
130 1: status 2: update 3: revert 4: add untracked
131 5: patch 6: diff 7: quit 8: help
135 You also could say "s" or "sta" or "status" above as long as the
138 The main command loop has 6 subcommands (plus help and quit).
142 This shows the change between HEAD and index (i.e. what will be
143 committed if you say "git commit"), and between index and
144 working tree files (i.e. what you could stage further before
145 "git commit" using "git-add") for each path. A sample output
150 1: binary nothing foo.png
151 2: +403/-35 +1/-1 git-add--interactive.perl
154 It shows that foo.png has differences from HEAD (but that is
155 binary so line count cannot be shown) and there is no
156 difference between indexed copy and the working tree
157 version (if the working tree version were also different,
158 'binary' would have been shown in place of 'nothing'). The
159 other file, git-add--interactive.perl, has 403 lines added
160 and 35 lines deleted if you commit what is in the index, but
161 working tree file has further modifications (one addition and
166 This shows the status information and gives prompt
167 "Update>>". When the prompt ends with double '>>', you can
168 make more than one selection, concatenated with whitespace or
169 comma. Also you can say ranges. E.g. "2-5 7,9" to choose
170 2,3,4,5,7,9 from the list. You can say '*' to choose
173 What you chose are then highlighted with '*',
178 1: binary nothing foo.png
179 * 2: +403/-35 +1/-1 git-add--interactive.perl
182 To remove selection, prefix the input with `-`
189 After making the selection, answer with an empty line to stage the
190 contents of working tree files for selected paths in the index.
194 This has a very similar UI to 'update', and the staged
195 information for selected paths are reverted to that of the
196 HEAD version. Reverting new paths makes them untracked.
200 This has a very similar UI to 'update' and
201 'revert', and lets you add untracked paths to the index.
205 This lets you choose one path out of 'status' like selection.
206 After choosing the path, it presents diff between the index
207 and the working tree file and asks you if you want to stage
208 the change of each hunk. You can say:
211 n - do not stage this hunk
212 a - stage this and all the remaining hunks in the file
213 d - do not stage this hunk nor any of the remaining hunks in the file
214 j - leave this hunk undecided, see next undecided hunk
215 J - leave this hunk undecided, see next hunk
216 k - leave this hunk undecided, see previous undecided hunk
217 K - leave this hunk undecided, see previous hunk
218 s - split the current hunk into smaller hunks
221 After deciding the fate for all hunks, if there is any hunk
222 that was chosen, the index is updated with the selected hunks.
226 This lets you review what will be committed (i.e. between
232 linkgit:git-status[1]
236 linkgit:git-commit[1]
237 linkgit:git-update-index[1]
241 Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
245 Documentation by Junio C Hamano and the git-list <git@vger.kernel.org>.
249 Part of the linkgit:git[7] suite