Tribblix: manual page: git-add.1

GIT-ADD(1) Git Manual GIT-ADD(1)

NAME

git-add - Add file contents to the index

SYNOPSIS

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 tree, 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

<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.

--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.

-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

+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 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:

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 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 - 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
p - print 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.

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:

+o adding context (" ") or removal ("-") lines

+o deleting context or removal lines

+o 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.

GIT

Part of the git(1) suite

Git 2.48.1 2025-01-13 GIT-ADD(1)