Re: Question about "git commit -a"

[Andreas Ericsson <ae@op5.se>]

Paolo Ciarrocchi wrote:
> On 10/5/07, Andreas Ericsson <ae@op5.se> wrote:
> [...]
>> As for the "git commit should default to -a" discussion, I think it's pretty
>> clear where I stand ;-)
> 
> Fair enough.
> 
> Another try to have an easy explanation of how the staging area works:
> 
> paolo@paolo-desktop:~/HowIndexWorks$ ls
> A  B  C  D  E  F  G
> 
> Now I edit A,B,C,D and E:
> 
> $ echo A >> A
> $ echo B >> B
> $ echo C >> C
> $ echo D >> D
> $ echo E >> E
> 
> I now realize want to only commit the changes I did to A,B,C,D.
> First step is to place A,B,C and D into the staging area:
> $ git add A B C D
> 
> Now I can commit:
> $ git commitpaolo@paolo-desktop:~/HowIndexWorks$ git commit
> Created commit 16032dc: I modified A,B,C and D
>  4 files changed, 4 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
> 
> It's now time to work on F and G:
> $ echo F >> F
> $ echo G >> G
> 
> Current status is:
> paolo@paolo-desktop:~/HowIndexWorks$ git status
> # On branch master
> # Changed but not updated:
> #   (use "git add <file>..." to update what will be committed)
> #
> #       modified:   E
> #       modified:   F
> #       modified:   G
> 
> Instead of adding E,F and G to the staging are and then commit them in
> two steps I can using a single command:
> $ git commit E F G (in this case it's equivalent to git commit -a)
> 

He. It's like comparing a duracell battery to the sun, but yes, that's
one of the operations where the index is involved. But after doing your
git-add thing above, you could also have continued hacking on A B C D,
and git would only have committed the state where you did "git add".
When you stop to think about this, you'll realize that it's a really
powerful thing, as it lets you keep on hacking even when you don't
really know where you'll end up.

-- 
Andreas Ericsson                   andreas.ericsson@op5.se
OP5 AB                             www.op5.se
Tel: +46 8-230225                  Fax: +46 8-230231