Add all files to a commit except a single file?

Question

I have a bunch of files in a changeset, but I want to specifically ignore a single modified file. Looks like this after git status:

# modified:          


        

Answer 1

Use git add -A to add all modified and newly added files at once.

Example

git add -A
git reset -- main/dontcheckmein.txt

Answer 2

git add -u
git reset -- main/dontcheckmein.txt

Answer 3

While Ben Jackson is correct, I thought I would add how I've been using that solution as well. Below is a very simple script I use (that I call gitadd) to add all changes except a select few that I keep listed in a file called .gittrackignore (very similar to how .gitignore works).

#!/bin/bash
set -e

git add -A
git reset `cat .gittrackignore`

And this is what my current .gittrackignore looks like.

project.properties

I'm working on an Android project that I compile from the command line when deploying. This project depends on SherlockActionBar, so it needs to be referenced in project.properties, but that messes with the compilation, so now I just type gitadd and add all of the changes to git without having to un-add project.properties every single time.

Answer 4

Now git supports exclude certain paths and files by pathspec magic :(exclude) and its short form :!. So you can easily achieve it as the following command.

git add --all -- :!main/dontcheckmein.txt
git add -- . :!main/dontcheckmein.txt

Actually you can specify more:

git add --all -- :!path/to/file1 :!path/to/file2 :!path/to/folder1/*
git add -- . :!path/to/file1 :!path/to/file2 :!path/to/folder1/*

For Mac and Linux, surround each file/folder path with quotes

git add --all -- ':!path/to/file1' ':!path/to/file2' ':!path/to/folder1/*'

Answer 5

I use git add --patch quite a bit and wanted something like this to avoid having to hit d all the time through the same files. I whipped up a very hacky couple of git aliases to get the job done:

[alias]
    HELPER-CHANGED-FILTERED = "!f() { git status --porcelain | cut -c4- | ( [[ \"$1\" ]] && egrep -v \"$1\" || cat ); }; f"
    ap                      = "!git add --patch -- $(git HELPER-CHANGED-FILTERED 'min.(js|css)$' || echo 'THIS_FILE_PROBABLY_DOESNT_EXIST' )"

In my case I just wanted to ignore certain minified files all the time, but you could make it use an environment variable like $GIT_EXCLUDE_PATTERN for a more general use case.

Answer 6

For a File

git add -u
git reset -- main/dontcheckmein.txt

For a folder

git add -u
git reset -- main/*