NAME¶
git-add - Add file contents to the index
SYNOPSIS¶
git add [--verbose | -v] [--dry-run | -n] [--force | -f] [--interactive | -i] [--patch | -p]
[--edit | -e] [--[no-]all | -A | --[no-]ignore-removal | [--update | -u]] [--sparse]
[--intent-to-add | -N] [--refresh] [--ignore-errors] [--ignore-missing] [--renormalize]
[--chmod=(+|-)x] [--pathspec-from-file=<file> [--pathspec-file-nul]]
[--] [<pathspec>...]
DESCRIPTION¶
Add contents of new or changed files to the index. The
"index" (also known as the "staging area") is what you
use to prepare the contents of the next commit.
When you run git commit without any other arguments,
it will only commit staged changes. For example, if you’ve edited
file.c and want to commit your changes to that file, you can run:
git add file.c
git commit
You can also add only part of your changes to a file with
git add -p.
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. You can use the --force option to add ignored files. If you
specify the exact filename of an ignored file, git add will
fail with a list of ignored files. Otherwise it will silently ignore the
file.
Please see git-commit(1) for alternative ways to add
content to a commit.
OPTIONS¶
<pathspec>...
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
update the index to match the current state of the directory as a whole (e.g.
specifying
dir will record not just a file
dir/file1 modified in
the working tree, a file
dir/file2 added to the working tree, but also
a file
dir/file3 removed from the working tree). Note that older
versions of Git used to ignore removed files; use
--no-all option if
you want to add modified or new files but ignore removed ones.
For more details about the <pathspec> syntax, see the
pathspec entry in gitglossary(7).
-n, --dry-run
Don’t actually add the file(s), just show if they
exist and/or will be ignored.
-v, --verbose
Be verbose.
-f, --force
Allow adding otherwise ignored files. The option is also
used when submodule.<name>.ignore=all is set, but
you want to stage an update of the submodule. The path to the submodule
must be explicitly specified.
--sparse
Allow updating index entries outside of the
sparse-checkout cone. Normally,
git add refuses to update index
entries whose paths do not fit within the sparse-checkout cone, since those
files might be removed from the working tree without warning. See
git-sparse-checkout(1) for more details.
-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.
-U<n>, --unified=<n>
Generate diffs with <n> lines of context.
The number of context lines defaults to diff.context or 3 if the
configuration variable is unset. (-U without <n> is
silently accepted as a synonym for -p due to a historical
accident).
--inter-hunk-context=<n>
Show the context between diff hunks, up to the specified
<number> of lines, thereby fusing hunks that are close to each
other. Defaults to diff.interHunkContext or 0 if the config option is
unset.
-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.
The intent of this option is to pick and choose lines of the patch
to apply, or even to modify the contents of lines to be staged. This can be
quicker and more flexible than using the interactive hunk selector. However,
it is easy to confuse oneself and create a patch that does not apply to the
index. See EDITING PATCHES below.
-u, --update
Update the index just where it already has an entry
matching
<pathspec>. This removes as well as modifies index
entries to match the working tree, but adds no new files.
If no <pathspec> is given when -u option is
used, all tracked files in the entire working tree are updated (old versions
of Git used to limit the update to the current directory and its
subdirectories).
-A, --all, --no-ignore-removal
Update the index not only where the working tree has a
file matching
<pathspec> but also where the index already has an
entry. This adds, modifies, and removes index entries to match the working
tree.
If no <pathspec> is given when -A option is
used, all files in the entire working tree are updated (old versions of Git
used to limit the update to the current directory and its
subdirectories).
--no-all, --ignore-removal
Update the index by adding new files that are unknown to
the index and files modified in the working tree, but ignore files that have
been removed from the working tree. This option is a no-op when no
<pathspec> is used.
This option is primarily to help users who are used to older
versions of Git, whose git add <pathspec>... was
a synonym for git add --no-all
<pathspec>..., i.e. ignored removed files.
-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. The configuration variable
add.ignoreErrors can be set to true to make this the default
behaviour.
--ignore-missing
This option can only be used together with
--dry-run. By using this option the user can check if any of the given
files would be ignored, no matter if they are already present in the work tree
or not.
--no-warn-embedded-repo
By default, git add will warn when adding
an embedded repository to the index without using git submodule
add to create an entry in .gitmodules. This option will suppress
the warning (e.g., if you are manually performing operations on
submodules).
--renormalize
Apply the "clean" process freshly to all
tracked files to forcibly add them again to the index. This is useful after
changing core.autocrlf configuration or the text attribute in
order to correct files added with wrong CRLF/LF line endings. This
option implies -u. Lone CR characters are untouched, thus while a
CRLF cleans to LF, a CRCRLF sequence is only partially
cleaned to CRLF.
--chmod=(+|-)x
Override the executable bit of the added files. The
executable bit is only changed in the index, the files on disk are left
unchanged.
--pathspec-from-file=<file>
Pathspec is passed in
<file> instead of
commandline args. If
<file> is exactly
- then standard
input is used. Pathspec elements are separated by
LF or
CR/LF.
Pathspec elements can be quoted as explained for the configuration variable
core.quotePath (see
git-config(1)). See also
--pathspec-file-nul and global
--literal-pathspecs.
--pathspec-file-nul
Only meaningful with --pathspec-from-file.
Pathspec elements are separated with NUL character and all other
characters are taken literally (including newlines and quotes).
--
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).
EXAMPLES¶
•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.
•Considers adding content from all
git-*.sh
scripts:
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 add-interactive.c
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, add-interactive.c, 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 add-interactive.c
To remove selection, prefix the input with - like this:
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 select one of the following options and type return:
y - stage this hunk
n - do not stage this hunk
q - quit; do not stage this hunk or any of the remaining ones
a - stage this hunk and all later hunks in the file
d - do not stage this hunk or any of the later hunks in the file
g - select a hunk to go to
/ - search for a hunk matching the given regex
j - go to the next undecided hunk, roll over at the bottom
J - go to the next hunk, roll over at the bottom
k - go to the previous undecided hunk, roll over at the top
K - go to the previous hunk, roll over at the top
s - split the current hunk into smaller hunks
e - manually edit the current hunk
p - print the current hunk
P - print the current hunk using the pager
? - 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.
You can omit having to type return here, by setting the
configuration variable interactive.singleKey to true.
diff
This lets you review what will be committed (i.e. between
HEAD and index).
EDITING PATCHES¶
Invoking git add -e or selecting e
from the interactive hunk selector will open a patch in your editor; after
the editor exits, the result is applied to the index. You are free to make
arbitrary changes to the patch, but note that some changes may have
confusing results, or even result in a patch that cannot be applied. If you
want to abort the operation entirely (i.e., stage nothing new in the index),
simply delete all lines of the patch. The list below describes some common
things you may see in a patch, and which editing operations make sense on
them.
added content
Added content is represented by lines beginning with
"+". You can prevent staging any addition lines by deleting
them.
removed content
Removed content is represented by lines beginning with
"-". You can prevent staging their removal by converting the
"-" to a " " (space).
modified content
Modified content is represented by "-" lines
(removing the old content) followed by "+" lines (adding the
replacement content). You can prevent staging the modification by converting
"-" lines to " ", and removing "+" lines. Beware
that modifying only half of the pair is likely to introduce confusing changes
to the index.
There are also more complex operations that can be performed. But
beware that because the patch is applied only to the index and not the
working tree, the working tree will appear to "undo" the change in
the index. For example, introducing a new line into the index that is in
neither the HEAD nor the working tree will stage the new line for
commit, but the line will appear to be reverted in the working tree.
Avoid using these constructs, or do so with extreme caution.
removing untouched content
Content which does not differ between the index and
working tree may be shown on context lines, beginning with a " "
(space). You can stage context lines for removal by converting the space to a
"-". The resulting working tree file will appear to re-add the
content.
modifying existing content
One can also modify context lines by staging them for
removal (by converting " " to "-") and adding a
"+" line with the new content. Similarly, one can modify
"+" lines for existing additions or modifications. In all cases, the
new modification will appear reverted in the working tree.
new content
You may also add new content that does not exist in the
patch; simply add new lines, each starting with "+". The addition
will appear reverted in the working tree.
There are also several operations which should be avoided
entirely, as they will make the patch impossible to apply:
•adding context (" ") or removal
("-") lines
•deleting context or removal lines
•modifying the contents of context or removal
lines
CONFIGURATION¶
Everything below this line in this section is selectively included
from the git-config(1) documentation. The content is the same as
what’s found there:
add.ignoreErrors, add.ignore-errors (deprecated)
Tells git add to continue adding files when
some files cannot be added due to indexing errors. Equivalent to the
--ignore-errors option. add.ignore-errors is deprecated, as it
does not follow the usual naming convention for configuration variables.