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Nikolai
Nikolai

Reputation: 195

Git file statuses of files

According to the official git web site: File states

There are 4 states of files for git. So the question is: what status have deleted and moved/renamed files? Of course if the file is left in file system then after commit it will be untracked but before commit it has deleted status (for deletion). I think deletion is not really a file modification but an event.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 1552

Answers (1)

Edward Thomson
Edward Thomson

Reputation: 78673

You can consider a delete or a rename exactly like an edit in this diagram. It doesn't matter if you're making a content change (editing the file), making a metadata change (setting the file executable, for example) or deleting it, it goes through the same workflow.

If you have a file committed to git (in the teal "unmodified" state in your diagram) and you delete it, you are now in the "modified" state. git has detected this change:

On branch master
Changes not staged for commit:
  (use "git add/rm <file>..." to update what will be committed)
  (use "git checkout -- <file>..." to discard changes in working directory)

    deleted:    foo.txt

no changes added to commit (use "git add" and/or "git commit -a")

At this point the file is removed on-disk but not staged for deletion. It's in the yellow "modified" state. To stage it, you can stage it just like any other change, by running git add foo.txt.

Recall, despite the name, git add doesn't add a file, it stages the change to a file. In this case, the change is a delete, so git add will stage a delete.

(I mention this only to prove a point, in fact, it's much more natural to run git rm to stage a file's removal. Either will work.)

On branch master
Changes to be committed:
  (use "git reset HEAD <file>..." to unstage)

    deleted:    foo.txt

At this point, the file is in the red "staged" state. When you commit this change, the file will no longer exist in the repository.

[master 3b58d71] deleted
 1 file changed, 7 deletions(-)
 delete mode 100644 foo.txt

Recreating the file will start over in the grey "untracked" state.

On branch master
Untracked files:
  (use "git add <file>..." to include in what will be committed)

    foo.txt

nothing added to commit but untracked files present (use "git add" to track)

Upvotes: 1

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