Junio C Hamano <gitster@xxxxxxxxx> writes: > In other words, you give paths from the command line to tell the > command that you want to record the contents of them in the working > tree as a whole to be recorded in the resulting commit. ... and --only/--include only makes difference wrt what happens to contents from the other paths. Perhaps the attached would clarify it better, but there may have to be some tutorial material to teach users that fundamentally there are two ways to use Git, one to prepare what to be committed in the index and run "git commit" without any paths, and the other to pretty much ignore the index and run "git commit" with paths (or with "-a"), and mixing two are considered to be rare exception. You would (1) work with an elaborate sequence to build the next commit in the index using "add path" and "add -p", (2) notice a change that can go before what you are building (e.g. trivial typofix) outside the paths you are touching, and (3) edit that path and do "git commit <path>". That is the only scenario that makes some sense to mix the two modes. Imagine the change (2) you want to jump over your changes in (1) happens to be in a path you are working with the index, e.g. after running: git add -p hello.rb and picking only parts of changes you made to hello.rb into the index, you found a trivial typo in the same file but in an unrelated place (i.e. "git diff hello.rb" at that point would not show the typo either in the preimage or the context). There is no way to make the typofix first without disrupting what you did so far, and "git commit -o" would not help (you would instead do a "git stash" to save away the work in progress, make _only_ the typofix in the same file, commit and then unstash, or something). So in short, stick to either work with the index or ignore the index; do not mix the two workflows and you would not have to worry about "-o" or "-i". Documentation/git-commit.txt | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/Documentation/git-commit.txt b/Documentation/git-commit.txt index 0bbc8f5..d6c4af1 100644 --- a/Documentation/git-commit.txt +++ b/Documentation/git-commit.txt @@ -250,7 +250,7 @@ FROM UPSTREAM REBASE" section in linkgit:git-rebase[1].) -o:: --only:: - Make a commit only from the paths specified on the + Make a commit only from the working tree contents of 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, -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html