Git reference git stash

Git reference git stash

[Aron Sigfridsson]

Hi!

In the reference for git stash there is a section that specifies the
use of the pathspec option. It refers you to the gitglossary section
about pathspec for further information. In the glossary it states:
"See the documentation of each command for whether paths are relative
to the current directory or toplevel"

In the documentation for git stash I can't find any information about
whether it is top level or relative to current directory. Am I missing
something, or is the information not there?

Thank you for your work!

Aron

Re: Git reference git stash

[Mirko Faina]

It doesn't seem to be specified at all, but from a quick test you can
see for yourself that "git stash push <pathspec>" uses relative paths
from the current directory and not the toplevel one.

To be sure on what's the relative path to use you can check the output
from "git status".

Maybe it should be added to the documentation for "git stash".

Re: Git reference git stash

[Mirko Faina]

On Fri, Mar 06, 2026 at 03:09:15AM +0100, Mirko Faina wrote:
> It doesn't seem to be specified at all, but from a quick test you can
> see for yourself that "git stash push <pathspec>" uses relative paths
> from the current directory and not the toplevel one.
> 
> To be sure on what's the relative path to use you can check the output
> from "git status".
> 
> Maybe it should be added to the documentation for "git stash".

Looking at the docs for other commands that use pathspec, it doesn't
look like any of them explicitly say if it's toplevel or relative
neither. I suppose the author thought it was obvious which one it was,
besides, it can be easily checked just by trying out the command.

Re: Git reference git stash

[erik88]

On 26/03/06 03:31AM, Mirko Faina wrote:
> 
> Looking at the docs for other commands that use pathspec, it doesn't
> look like any of them explicitly say if it's toplevel or relative
> neither. I suppose the author thought it was obvious which one it was,
> besides, it can be easily checked just by trying out the command.
> 

Pretty sure git stash push is the only one which does pathspec

    git stash -h
    usage: git stash list [<log-options>]
       ...
       or: git stash [push [-p | --patch] [-S | --staged] [-k | --[no-]
                     [-u | --include-untracked] [-a | --all] [(-m | --m
                     [--pathspec-from-file=<file> [--pathspec-file-nul]
                     [--] [<pathspec>...]]

and pretty sure it's relative.

Sadly, git stash list does not allow a pathspec, despite the
[<log-options>]. But if you want you can do

    git log stash [<log-options>] [--] [<pathspec>]

instead, which is handy sometimes.

Re: Git reference git stash

[Junio C Hamano]

erik88 <erik88@gmail.com> writes:

> Pretty sure git stash push is the only one which does pathspec
>
>     git stash -h
>     usage: git stash list [<log-options>]
>        ...
>        or: git stash [push [-p | --patch] [-S | --staged] [-k | --[no-]
>                      [-u | --include-untracked] [-a | --all] [(-m | --m
>                      [--pathspec-from-file=<file> [--pathspec-file-nul]
>                      [--] [<pathspec>...]]
>
> and pretty sure it's relative.

In a very early days of Git, I suspect there were, but in modern
version with ":/" (or :(top)" pathspec magic, I do not think of a
need for any command (unless it cannot work from anywhere except for
the top level of the working tree for some reason) to insist taking
pathspec from the top, not relative to the directory where the user
is at.  It would break the <TAB>-completion if anything insists that
the pathspec must be relative to the top-level.

It may be a very good exercise (this can be done even by somebody
relatively new to the community, I think) to see if anything still
insists <pathspec> from the top.  And change the documentation of
the pathspec to say "unless specifically spelled out in each
command's documentation, pathspec elements are taken as relative to
the current directory" or something.

> Sadly, git stash list does not allow a pathspec, despite the
> [<log-options>]. But if you want you can do
>
>     git log stash [<log-options>] [--] [<pathspec>]
>
> instead, which is handy sometimes.