GIT-UPDATE-INDEX(1)               Git Manual               GIT-UPDATE-INDEX(1)



NAME
       git-update-index - Register file contents in the working tree to the
       index

SYNOPSIS
       git update-index
                    [--add] [--remove | --force-remove] [--replace]
                    [--refresh] [-q] [--unmerged] [--ignore-missing]
                    [(--cacheinfo <mode>,<object>,<file>)...]
                    [--chmod=(+|-)x]
                    [--[no-]assume-unchanged]
                    [--[no-]skip-worktree]
                    [--ignore-submodules]
                    [--really-refresh] [--unresolve] [--again | -g]
                    [--info-only] [--index-info]
                    [-z] [--stdin] [--index-version <n>]
                    [--verbose]
                    [--] [<file>...]


DESCRIPTION
       Modifies the index or directory cache. Each file mentioned is updated
       into the index and any unmerged or needs updating state is cleared.

       See also git-add(1) for a more user-friendly way to do some of the most
       common operations on the index.

       The way git update-index handles files it is told about can be modified
       using the various options:

OPTIONS
       --add
           If a specified file isn't in the index already then it's added.
           Default behaviour is to ignore new files.

       --remove
           If a specified file is in the index but is missing then it's
           removed. Default behavior is to ignore removed file.

       --refresh
           Looks at the current index and checks to see if merges or updates
           are needed by checking stat() information.

       -q
           Quiet. If --refresh finds that the index needs an update, the
           default behavior is to error out. This option makes git
           update-index continue anyway.

       --ignore-submodules
           Do not try to update submodules. This option is only respected when
           passed before --refresh.

       --unmerged
           If --refresh finds unmerged changes in the index, the default
           behavior is to error out. This option makes git update-index
           continue anyway.

       --ignore-missing
           Ignores missing files during a --refresh

       --cacheinfo <mode>,<object>,<path>, --cacheinfo <mode> <object> <path>
           Directly insert the specified info into the index. For backward
           compatibility, you can also give these three arguments as three
           separate parameters, but new users are encouraged to use a
           single-parameter form.

       --index-info
           Read index information from stdin.

       --chmod=(+|-)x
           Set the execute permissions on the updated files.

       --[no-]assume-unchanged
           When these flags are specified, the object names recorded for the
           paths are not updated. Instead, these options set and unset the
           "assume unchanged" bit for the paths. When the "assume unchanged"
           bit is on, Git stops checking the working tree files for possible
           modifications, so you need to manually unset the bit to tell Git
           when you change the working tree file. This is sometimes helpful
           when working with a big project on a filesystem that has very slow
           lstat(2) system call (e.g. cifs).

           This option can be also used as a coarse file-level mechanism to
           ignore uncommitted changes in tracked files (akin to what
           .gitignore does for untracked files). Git will fail (gracefully) in
           case it needs to modify this file in the index e.g. when merging in
           a commit; thus, in case the assumed-untracked file is changed
           upstream, you will need to handle the situation manually.

       --really-refresh
           Like --refresh, but checks stat information unconditionally,
           without regard to the "assume unchanged" setting.

       --[no-]skip-worktree
           When one of these flags is specified, the object name recorded for
           the paths are not updated. Instead, these options set and unset the
           "skip-worktree" bit for the paths. See section "Skip-worktree bit"
           below for more information.

       -g, --again
           Runs git update-index itself on the paths whose index entries are
           different from those from the HEAD commit.

       --unresolve
           Restores the unmerged or needs updating state of a file during a
           merge if it was cleared by accident.

       --info-only
           Do not create objects in the object database for all <file>
           arguments that follow this flag; just insert their object IDs into
           the index.

       --force-remove
           Remove the file from the index even when the working directory
           still has such a file. (Implies --remove.)

       --replace
           By default, when a file path exists in the index, git update-index
           refuses an attempt to add path/file. Similarly if a file path/file
           exists, a file path cannot be added. With --replace flag, existing
           entries that conflict with the entry being added are automatically
           removed with warning messages.

       --stdin
           Instead of taking list of paths from the command line, read list of
           paths from the standard input. Paths are separated by LF (i.e. one
           path per line) by default.

       --verbose
           Report what is being added and removed from index.

       --index-version <n>
           Write the resulting index out in the named on-disk format version.
           Supported versions are 2, 3 and 4. The current default version is 2
           or 3, depending on whether extra features are used, such as git add
           -N.

           Version 4 performs a simple pathname compression that reduces index
           size by 30%-50% on large repositories, which results in faster load
           time. Version 4 is relatively young (first released in in 1.8.0 in
           October 2012). Other Git implementations such as JGit and libgit2
           may not support it yet.

       -z
           Only meaningful with --stdin or --index-info; paths are separated
           with NUL character instead of LF.

       --split-index, --no-split-index
           Enable or disable split index mode. If enabled, the index is split
           into two files, $GIT_DIR/index and $GIT_DIR/sharedindex.<SHA-1>.
           Changes are accumulated in $GIT_DIR/index while the shared index
           file contains all index entries stays unchanged. If split-index
           mode is already enabled and --split-index is given again, all
           changes in $GIT_DIR/index are pushed back to the shared index file.
           This mode is designed for very large indexes that take a signficant
           amount of time to read or write.

       --
           Do not interpret any more arguments as options.

       <file>
           Files to act on. Note that files beginning with .  are discarded.
           This includes ./file and dir/./file. If you don't want this, then
           use cleaner names. The same applies to directories ending / and
           paths with //

USING --REFRESH
       --refresh does not calculate a new sha1 file or bring the index
       up-to-date for mode/content changes. But what it does do is to
       "re-match" the stat information of a file with the index, so that you
       can refresh the index for a file that hasn't been changed but where the
       stat entry is out of date.

       For example, you'd want to do this after doing a git read-tree, to link
       up the stat index details with the proper files.

USING --CACHEINFO OR --INFO-ONLY
       --cacheinfo is used to register a file that is not in the current
       working directory. This is useful for minimum-checkout merging.

       To pretend you have a file with mode and sha1 at path, say:

           $ git update-index --cacheinfo mode sha1 path


       --info-only is used to register files without placing them in the
       object database. This is useful for status-only repositories.

       Both --cacheinfo and --info-only behave similarly: the index is updated
       but the object database isn't. --cacheinfo is useful when the object is
       in the database but the file isn't available locally. --info-only is
       useful when the file is available, but you do not wish to update the
       object database.

USING --INDEX-INFO
       --index-info is a more powerful mechanism that lets you feed multiple
       entry definitions from the standard input, and designed specifically
       for scripts. It can take inputs of three formats:

        1. mode SP sha1 TAB path

           The first format is what "git-apply --index-info" reports, and used
           to reconstruct a partial tree that is used for phony merge base
           tree when falling back on 3-way merge.

        2. mode SP type SP sha1 TAB path

           The second format is to stuff git ls-tree output into the index
           file.

        3. mode SP sha1 SP stage TAB path

           This format is to put higher order stages into the index file and
           matches git ls-files --stage output.

       To place a higher stage entry to the index, the path should first be
       removed by feeding a mode=0 entry for the path, and then feeding
       necessary input lines in the third format.

       For example, starting with this index:

           $ git ls-files -s
           100644 8a1218a1024a212bb3db30becd860315f9f3ac52 0       frotz


       you can feed the following input to --index-info:

           $ git update-index --index-info
           0 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000      frotz
           100644 8a1218a1024a212bb3db30becd860315f9f3ac52 1       frotz
           100755 8a1218a1024a212bb3db30becd860315f9f3ac52 2       frotz


       The first line of the input feeds 0 as the mode to remove the path; the
       SHA-1 does not matter as long as it is well formatted. Then the second
       and third line feeds stage 1 and stage 2 entries for that path. After
       the above, we would end up with this:

           $ git ls-files -s
           100644 8a1218a1024a212bb3db30becd860315f9f3ac52 1       frotz
           100755 8a1218a1024a212bb3db30becd860315f9f3ac52 2       frotz


USING "ASSUME UNCHANGED" BIT
       Many operations in Git depend on your filesystem to have an efficient
       lstat(2) implementation, so that st_mtime information for working tree
       files can be cheaply checked to see if the file contents have changed
       from the version recorded in the index file. Unfortunately, some
       filesystems have inefficient lstat(2). If your filesystem is one of
       them, you can set "assume unchanged" bit to paths you have not changed
       to cause Git not to do this check. Note that setting this bit on a path
       does not mean Git will check the contents of the file to see if it has
       changed -- it makes Git to omit any checking and assume it has not
       changed. When you make changes to working tree files, you have to
       explicitly tell Git about it by dropping "assume unchanged" bit, either
       before or after you modify them.

       In order to set "assume unchanged" bit, use --assume-unchanged option.
       To unset, use --no-assume-unchanged. To see which files have the
       "assume unchanged" bit set, use git ls-files -v (see git-ls-files(1)).

       The command looks at core.ignorestat configuration variable. When this
       is true, paths updated with git update-index paths... and paths updated
       with other Git commands that update both index and working tree (e.g.
       git apply --index, git checkout-index -u, and git read-tree -u) are
       automatically marked as "assume unchanged". Note that "assume
       unchanged" bit is not set if git update-index --refresh finds the
       working tree file matches the index (use git update-index
       --really-refresh if you want to mark them as "assume unchanged").

EXAMPLES
       To update and refresh only the files already checked out:

           $ git checkout-index -n -f -a && git update-index --ignore-missing --refresh



       On an inefficient filesystem with core.ignorestat set

               $ git update-index --really-refresh              (1)
               $ git update-index --no-assume-unchanged foo.c   (2)
               $ git diff --name-only                           (3)
               $ edit foo.c
               $ git diff --name-only                           (4)
               M foo.c
               $ git update-index foo.c                         (5)
               $ git diff --name-only                           (6)
               $ edit foo.c
               $ git diff --name-only                           (7)
               $ git update-index --no-assume-unchanged foo.c   (8)
               $ git diff --name-only                           (9)
               M foo.c

           1. forces lstat(2) to set "assume unchanged" bits for paths that
           match index.
           2. mark the path to be edited.
           3. this does lstat(2) and finds index matches the path.
           4. this does lstat(2) and finds index does not match the path.
           5. registering the new version to index sets "assume unchanged"
           bit.
           6. and it is assumed unchanged.
           7. even after you edit it.
           8. you can tell about the change after the fact.
           9. now it checks with lstat(2) and finds it has been changed.

SKIP-WORKTREE BIT
       Skip-worktree bit can be defined in one (long) sentence: When reading
       an entry, if it is marked as skip-worktree, then Git pretends its
       working directory version is up to date and read the index version
       instead.

       To elaborate, "reading" means checking for file existence, reading file
       attributes or file content. The working directory version may be
       present or absent. If present, its content may match against the index
       version or not. Writing is not affected by this bit, content safety is
       still first priority. Note that Git can update working directory file,
       that is marked skip-worktree, if it is safe to do so (i.e. working
       directory version matches index version)

       Although this bit looks similar to assume-unchanged bit, its goal is
       different from assume-unchanged bit's. Skip-worktree also takes
       precedence over assume-unchanged bit when both are set.

CONFIGURATION
       The command honors core.filemode configuration variable. If your
       repository is on a filesystem whose executable bits are unreliable,
       this should be set to false (see git-config(1)). This causes the
       command to ignore differences in file modes recorded in the index and
       the file mode on the filesystem if they differ only on executable bit.
       On such an unfortunate filesystem, you may need to use git update-index
       --chmod=.

       Quite similarly, if core.symlinks configuration variable is set to
       false (see git-config(1)), symbolic links are checked out as plain
       files, and this command does not modify a recorded file mode from
       symbolic link to regular file.

       The command looks at core.ignorestat configuration variable. See Using
       "assume unchanged" bit section above.

       The command also looks at core.trustctime configuration variable. It
       can be useful when the inode change time is regularly modified by
       something outside Git (file system crawlers and backup systems use
       ctime for marking files processed) (see git-config(1)).

SEE ALSO
       git-config(1), git-add(1), git-ls-files(1)

GIT
       Part of the git(1) suite



Git 2.1.4                         03/19/2016               GIT-UPDATE-INDEX(1)
