Commit only part of a file in Git

Question

When I make changes to a file in Git, how can I commit only some of the changes?

For example, how could I commit only 15 lines out of 30 lines that have been changed

Answer 1

You can use git add --interactive or git add -p <file>, and then git commit (not git commit -a); see Interactive mode in git-add manpage, or simply follow instructions.

Modern Git has also git commit --interactive (and git commit --patch, which is shortcut to patch option in interactive commit).

If you prefer doing it from GUI, you can use git-gui. You can simply mark chunks which you want to have included in commit. I personally find it easier than using git add -i. Other git GUIs, like QGit or GitX, might also have this functionality as well.

Answer 2

I believe that git add -e myfile is the easiest way (my preference at least) since it simply opens a text editor and lets you choose which line you want to stage and which line you don't. Regarding editing commands:

added content:

Added content is represented by lines beginning with "+". You can prevent staging any addition lines by deleting them.

removed content:

Removed content is represented by lines beginning with "-". You can prevent staging their removal by converting the "-" to a " " (space).

modified content:

Modified content is represented by "-" lines (removing the old content) followed by "+" lines (adding the replacement content). You can prevent staging the modification by converting "-" lines to " ", and removing "+" lines. Beware that modifying only half of the pair is likely to introduce confusing changes to the index.

Every details about git add are available on git --help add

Answer 3

If it's on Windows platform, in my opinion git gui is very good tool to stage/commit few lines from unstaged file

1. Hunk wise:

• Select the file from unstagged Changes section
• Right click chunk of code which needs to be staged
• Select Stage Hunk for commit

2. Line wise:

• Select the file from unstagged Changes section
• Select the line/lines to be staged
• Right click and select Stage Lines for commit

3. If you want to stage the complete file except couple of lines:

• Select the file from unstagged Changes section
• Press Ctrl+T (Stage file to commit)
• Selected file now moves to Staged Changes Section
• Select the line/lines be staged
• Right click and select UnStage Lines for commit

Answer 4

You can use git add --patch <filename> (or -p for short), and git will begin to break down your file into what it thinks are sensible "hunks" (portions of the file). It will then prompt you with this question:

Stage this hunk [y,n,q,a,d,/,j,J,g,s,e,?]?

Here is a description of each option:

• y stage this hunk for the next commit
• n do not stage this hunk for the next commit
• q quit; do not stage this hunk or any of the remaining hunks
• a stage this hunk and all later hunks in the file
• d do not stage this hunk or any of the later hunks in the file
• g select a hunk to go to
• / search for a hunk matching the given regex
• j leave this hunk undecided, see next undecided hunk
• J leave this hunk undecided, see next hunk
• k leave this hunk undecided, see previous undecided hunk
• K leave this hunk undecided, see previous hunk
• s split the current hunk into smaller hunks
• e manually edit the current hunk
• ? print hunk help

If the file is not in the repository yet, you can first do git add -N <filename>. Afterwards you can go on with git add -p <filename>.

Afterwards, you can use:

• git diff --staged to check that you staged the correct changes
• git reset -p to unstage mistakenly added hunks
• git commit -v to view your commit while you edit the commit message.

Note this is far different than the git format-patch command, whose purpose is to parse commit data into a .patch files.

Reference for future: Git Tools - Interactive Staging

Answer 5

Worth noting that to use git add --patch for a new file you need to first add the file to index with git add --intent-to-add:

git add -N file
git add -p file

Answer 6

It's been 10 years since this question was asked. And I hope this answer will be useful to someone. As mentioned in the answer here, where GUI is not an option, Andrew Shadura's crecord extension helps bring a ncurses window in which we can select the lines to commit.

Set up the extension as follows:

git clone https://github.com/andrewshadura/git-crecord
cd git-crecord
./setup.py install
ln -s $PWD/git-crecord ~/.local/bin/git-crecord

cd to your git repo and invoke it as follows:

git crecord

This would bring up the ncurses interface which can be used as shown below. Pressing the following keys in the ncurses window will do certain actions:

f       hunk toggle fold (arrow keys can also be used)
space   toggle hunk selection
a       toggle commit or amend
c       confirm and open commit window

Screencast showing a sample usage