How to add multiple files to Git at the same time

Question

This will be my first git use. I have added new files ( a lot ) to the folder/project ( git local repository).

I went through online tutorials and forums and see i can do

git commit -a

So I go to the base folder of the repository and do a

sudo git commit -a

But then, some screens comes up and asks me to add a comment which i do. i do not know how to proceed or exit. I do not want to mess up so i did ctrl + Z and did not do anything.

Can you guys please outline the commands I need to use?

git commit -a 

and

git push?

Solution 1

To add all the changes you've made:

git add .

To commit them:

git commit -m "MY MESSAGE HERE" #-m is the message flag

You can put those steps together like this:

git commit -a -m "MY MESSAGE HERE"

To push your committed changes from your local repository to your remote repository:

git push origin master

You might have to type in your username/password for github after this. Here's a good primer on using git. A bit old, but it covers what's going on really well.

Solution 2

Use the git add command, followed by a list of space-separated filenames.

git add file-1 file-2 file-3

Include paths and .extensions, e.g.

git add images/logo.png scripts/app.js

Solution 3

As some have mentioned a possible way is using git interactive staging. This is great when you have files with different extensions

$ git add -i
           staged     unstaged path
  1:    unchanged        +0/-1 TODO
  2:    unchanged        +1/-1 index.html
  3:    unchanged        +5/-1 lib/simplegit.rb

*** Commands ***
  1: status     2: update      3: revert     4: add untracked
  5: patch      6: diff        7: quit       8: help
What now>

If you press 2 then enter you will get a list of available files to be added:

What now> 2
           staged     unstaged path
  1:    unchanged        +0/-1 TODO
  2:    unchanged        +1/-1 index.html
  3:    unchanged        +5/-1 lib/simplegit.rb
Update>>

Now you just have to insert the number of the files you want to add, so if we wanted to add TODO and index.html we would type 1,2

Update>> 1,2
           staged     unstaged path
* 1:    unchanged        +0/-1 TODO
* 2:    unchanged        +1/-1 index.html
  3:    unchanged        +5/-1 lib/simplegit.rb
Update>>

You see the * before the number? that means that the file was added.

Now imagine that you have 7 files and you want to add them all except the 7th? Sure we could type 1,2,3,4,5,6 but imagine instead of 7 we have 16, that would be quite cumbersome, the good thing we don't need to type them all because we can use ranges,by typing 1-6

Update>> 1-6
           staged     unstaged path
* 1:    unchanged        +0/-1 TODO
* 2:    unchanged        +1/-1 index.html
* 3:    unchanged        +5/-1 lib/simplegit.rb
* 4:    unchanged        +5/-1 file4.html
* 5:    unchanged        +5/-1 file5.html
* 6:    unchanged        +5/-1 file6.html
  7:    unchanged        +5/-1 file7.html
Update>>

We can even use multiple ranges, so if we want from 1 to 3 and from 5 to 7 we type 1-3, 5-7:

Update>> 1-3, 5-7
           staged     unstaged path
* 1:    unchanged        +0/-1 TODO
* 2:    unchanged        +1/-1 index.html
* 3:    unchanged        +5/-1 lib/simplegit.rb
  4:    unchanged        +5/-1 file4.html
* 5:    unchanged        +5/-1 file5.html
* 6:    unchanged        +5/-1 file6.html
* 7:    unchanged        +5/-1 file7.html
Update>>

We can also use this to unstage files, if we type -number, so if we wanted to unstage file number 1 we would type -1:

Update>> -1
           staged     unstaged path
  1:    unchanged        +0/-1 TODO
* 2:    unchanged        +1/-1 index.html
* 3:    unchanged        +5/-1 lib/simplegit.rb
  4:    unchanged        +5/-1 file4.html
* 5:    unchanged        +5/-1 file5.html
* 6:    unchanged        +5/-1 file6.html
* 7:    unchanged        +5/-1 file7.html
Update>>

And as you can imagine we can also unstage a range of files, so if we type -range all the files on that range would be unstaged. If we wanted to unstage all the files from 5 to 7 we would type -5-7:

Update>> -5-7
           staged     unstaged path
  1:    unchanged        +0/-1 TODO
* 2:    unchanged        +1/-1 index.html
* 3:    unchanged        +5/-1 lib/simplegit.rb
  4:    unchanged        +5/-1 file4.html
  5:    unchanged        +5/-1 file5.html
  6:    unchanged        +5/-1 file6.html
  7:    unchanged        +5/-1 file7.html
Update>>

Solution 4

You can also select multiple files like this

git add folder/subfolder/*

This will add all the files in the specified subfolder. Very useful when you edit a bunch of files but you just want to commit some of them...

Solution 5

If you want to add multiple files in a given folder you can split them using {,}. This is awesome for not repeating long paths, e.g.

git add long/path/{file1,file2,...,filen}

Beware not to put spaces between the ,.

View more solutions

Comments

[Bhaskar]

git commit -a opens up an editor for you to type commit message. Enter a message you want to see as log and exit the editor. This completes the commit. Follow that up by pushing your changes to remote repository using git push <remote name> <branch name> such as git push remote master

[dax]

also note, you don't need to (and shouldn't) use sudo

[kishore .]

Thanks for the reply.If i do not use sudo i get permission denied error.

[Greg Hewgill]

Having used sudo previously, you probably have files in your working directory that are now mistakenly owned by root. At this point doing other operations without sudo will cause a permission denied error because you can't change those files owned by root. Your repository might be a bit of a mess and it might be best to start over (and don't use sudo).

[Kapila Ranasinghe]

if you want to add all files you can use ` git add -a ` .But if you want to add multiple selected files. you can use ` git add -i ' . please refer this git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Git-Tools-Interactive-Staging . this will help you .

[Andrew Wasson]

This is old but I think the best way to specifically add the contents of several targeted directories is as follows: git add directory/subdirectory_1* directory/subdirectory_2*

[kishore .]

Thank you!. On the last command git push origin master. I am actually working on a different branch name ( which was created from the master branch). SO do i need to eneter my branch name or origin master. Thanks again

[somi]

No problem.:) Yes, you should use your branch names, origin master are just examples.

[kishore .]

Thanks a lot everybody who replied. I successfully committed and pushed my files.

[SabreWolfy]

Will -a add new (unstaged) files before the commit?

[dax]

git commit -a is shorthand for git commit --all, so yes, it will.

[SabreWolfy]

$ man git-commit includes this for -a: "Tell the command to automatically stage files that have been modified and deleted, but new files you have not told Git about are not affected.", which is why I asked.

[Kapila Ranasinghe]

personally i like to this way. it is easy to use when you have more files to commit and other operations.

[Inyoka]

For completeness the easiest way to add multiple files of one type is using the asterisk, for example for html use "git add *.html"

[lalithkumar]

what is long/path/ here? @EliuX

[EliuX]

long/path could be a path string with a very long length, so its more comfortable not repeat such part, without having to cd into it

[Maxime Helen]

This doesn't work when one of the file name includes a whitespace with git 1.9.5

[Cris]

Once you ended, how do you finish the interactive staging?

[Fabio Antunes]

@Crparedes once you have added the files, if you press enter again it goes back to the menu, then you have to choose option 7 to quit from interactive staging.

[Jesús Sánchez]

very helpful for me

[candyline]

saved me 10 seconds + thousands to come in the future

[datalifenyc]

Just wanted to add that wildcards are accepted: git add *.py to add all python files.

[Graham John]

This was very helpful for me; thanks.