Re: Git commit won't add an untracked file given on the command line

From: Matthieu Moy <matthieu.moy@imag.fr>
Date: Nov 18, 2008, 22:16 UTC
Message-ID: <vpq8wrg7k9k.fsf@bauges.imag.fr>
In-Reply-To: <200811182227.20076.fge@one2team.com>

Francis Galiegue <fge@one2team.com> writes:

Show 15 quoted lines

> Le Tuesday 18 November 2008 22:12:37 Mark Burton, vous avez écrit :
>> Hi,
>>
>> When I try:
>>
>> git commit -m "New file." .gitignore
>>
>> Where .gitignore is not yet tracked, I get:
>>
>> error: pathspec '.gitignore' did not match any file(s) known to git.
>>
>> Is that result by design, sloth or bug (or me being stupid)?
>>
>
> You must "git add .gitignore" first. And yes, this is by design.

If it's by design, then it's a documentation bug:

     -o, --only
        Make a commit only from the paths specified on the
        command line, disregarding any contents that have been
                      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
        staged so far. This is the default mode of operation of
        ^^^^^^^^^^^^^
        git-commit if any paths are given on the command line,

We have here a case where having staged content before doing commit -o actually changes its behavior.

Looking at the code, this happens because the "file" list is actually a pattern list (so that you can "git commit '*.txt'" or so), and the pattern is looked for in the index (the error is raised in "list_paths").

> You could also have done git commit -a -m "themessage".

Well, he could have done that, but then the result would have been different ;-).

-- 
Matthieu