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Mohammad Ali Asgar
Mohammad Ali Asgar

Reputation: 734

How to stage subsequent changes to a file that has already been staged in index?

I made some changes to a file and then staged it in the index for the next commit. Then I realized that I needed some more changes to do. Instead of unstaging it, is there a way to capture these subsequent changes before finally committing?

Would it be

git add -u filename (as many times as I make changes to the filename file)

instead of

git reset

git add filename

?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 492

Answers (2)

Mohammad Ali Asgar
Mohammad Ali Asgar

Reputation: 734

Example to show the affect of making subsequent changes to a file already staged and running "git add" on it each time

echo "new file" > newfile.txt

git add newfile.txt

git ls-files --stage [Note the object corresponding to newfile.txt]

100644 fa49b077972391ad58037050f2a75f74e3671e92 0 newfile.txt

ls -Fls .git/objects/fa [Look into the fa folder]

1 -r--r--r-- 1 user1234 1049089 24 Mar 19 00:17 49b0779.......

echo "adding a second line to my new file" >> newfile.txt

git add newfile.txt

git ls-files --stage [Note the new object corresponding to newfile.txt]

100644 9f70c3077ccb16453d0ad0c152e8c169f81d8466 0 newfile.txt

ls -Fls .git/objects/9f [Look into the 9f folder]

1 -r--r--r-- 1 user1234 1049089 54 Mar 19 00:22 70c3077......

git fsck | grep fa49b0779 [Scanning for dangling blobs]

Checking object directories: 100% (256/256), done. Checking objects: 100% (462/462), done. dangling blob fa49b0779.... [Found that the previous blob is now dangling!]

git fsck | grep 9f70c3077...... [Scanning to see if the current blob is dangling]

Checking object directories: 100% (256/256), done. Checking objects: 100% (462/462), done. [Obviously, not found!]

echo "this is the third line" >> newfile.txt [Making more changes to newfile.txt]

git add newfile.txt

git fsck | grep 9f70c3077..... [Scanning again for 9f70c3077......]

Checking object directories: 100% (256/256), done. Checking objects: 100% (462/462), done. dangling blob 9f70c3077....

[This time, we find 9f70c3077...... is no longer the blob corresponding to newfile.txt. It's now dangling, waiting for the garbage collector to wipe it out!]

Upvotes: 0

Joseph Silber
Joseph Silber

Reputation: 219936

You can call git add filename on the same file as many times as you want.

It'll always add any existing non-staged changes, regardless of whether the file already has changes in the index.

The -u flag (shortcut for --update) serves a different purpose. From the man page:

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.

In other words: if filename has never been tracked before, git add -u filename won't add it to the index. But for files that are already tracked, using the -u flag makes no difference.

Upvotes: 2

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