Last Updated: July 17, 2023
·
183.5K
· manojlds

Add all modified files in git - the easy way

I recently saw a protip that use git ls-files to add modified files. Like so:

git ls-files --modified | xargs git add

You don't have to do that!

All you need to do is:

git add -u

Done!

4 Responses
Add your response

If you delete files, you will also need to do git add ..

I prefer to use git add -A which does git add . && git add -u.

over 1 year ago ·

@twolfson From the docs:

Only match <filepattern> against already tracked files in the index rather than the working tree. That means that it will never stage new files, but that it will stage modified new contents of tracked files and that it will remove files from the index if the corresponding files in the working tree have been removed.

That does mean that git add -u stages deletions too. These commands take in an optional <filepattern> and when that is not given, it is by default .

git add -A add all files, including untracked ones.

over 1 year ago ·

@manojlds Ah, correct you are (I just tried it too).

I think I must have misread my git status one time and considered that my lesson learned.

over 1 year ago ·

Signed up for an account, just to say awesome stuff. This was a great command. Take care!!

over 1 year ago ·