CODEWITHSUNDEEP
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appsecguy
appsecguy

Reputation: 1049

Understanding when to use git commit -m and git commit -am

My main question here is whether iti makes sense to just always do git commit -am instead of git add . followed by git commit -m?

I understand that -am indicates that it will add all changes from modified TRACKED files. So in a situation where I did not add any new files, it would make sense to just run git commit -am instead of git add, but would it be considered best practice to just do:

git add .

git commit -am "message"

anyway?

or even instead:

git add -A

git commit -am "message"

Upvotes: 4

Views: 3048

Answers (3)

Cogwheel
Cogwheel

Reputation: 23227

I have committed enough code accidentally by doing -am that I generally avoid it these days. git add -u will stage the same changes as the git commit -a and then you can do a git diff --cached to make sure you want to commit them. Some of my colleagues even go so far as to always do git add -p so they have to look at every diff before it's even staged.

If I know the changes I've made are small then i'll still use git commit -am for convenience, but it may be worth getting out of that being the default habit.

Upvotes: 3

sleske
sleske

Reputation: 83628

would it be considered best practice to just do:

git add .

git commit -am "message"

anyway?

No, there is no such "best practice". As long as you do not want to include any untracked files, git add + git commit -m and git commit -am will do exactly the same.

There are two situations where you need to to use git add:

  • if you want to include untracked files, and
  • if you do not want to commit everything that changed

The second point in particular is the reason many people recommend against always using commit -a: After working on code for a while, you often have several different types of changes in your working copy (the bugfix you were working on, some unrelated renaming, some temporary changes for debugging...). commit -a risks putting too much into one commit - in these cases selective use of git add is better.

But if you are certain you want to commit everything you changed, go ahead and use git commit -a.

Upvotes: 6

Paul Hicks
Paul Hicks

Reputation: 14009

If you keep your .gitignore current, then git commit -am is a perfectly adequate way to do things. It is a shortcut for git add -uA <nopattern> ; git commit -m "message".

This is git, best practice is subjective. I prefer to add files manually so that I get a chance to review changes as I go, but you might not need that.

Upvotes: 3

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