1GIT-CHECKOUT-INDEX(1)             Git Manual             GIT-CHECKOUT-INDEX(1)
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NAME

6       git-checkout-index - Copy files from the index to the working tree
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SYNOPSIS

9       git checkout-index [-u] [-q] [-a] [-f] [-n] [--prefix=<string>]
10                          [--stage=<number>|all]
11                          [--temp]
12                          [-z] [--stdin]
13                          [--] [<file>...]
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DESCRIPTION

17       Will copy all files listed from the index to the working directory (not
18       overwriting existing files).
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OPTIONS

21       -u, --index
22           update stat information for the checked out entries in the index
23           file.
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25       -q, --quiet
26           be quiet if files exist or are not in the index
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28       -f, --force
29           forces overwrite of existing files
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31       -a, --all
32           checks out all files in the index. Cannot be used together with
33           explicit filenames.
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35       -n, --no-create
36           Don’t checkout new files, only refresh files already checked out.
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38       --prefix=<string>
39           When creating files, prepend <string> (usually a directory
40           including a trailing /)
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42       --stage=<number>|all
43           Instead of checking out unmerged entries, copy out the files from
44           named stage. <number> must be between 1 and 3. Note: --stage=all
45           automatically implies --temp.
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47       --temp
48           Instead of copying the files to the working directory write the
49           content to temporary files. The temporary name associations will be
50           written to stdout.
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52       --stdin
53           Instead of taking list of paths from the command line, read list of
54           paths from the standard input. Paths are separated by LF (i.e. one
55           path per line) by default.
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57       -z
58           Only meaningful with --stdin; paths are separated with NUL
59           character instead of LF.
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61       --
62           Do not interpret any more arguments as options.
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64       The order of the flags used to matter, but not anymore.
65
66       Just doing git checkout-index does nothing. You probably meant git
67       checkout-index -a. And if you want to force it, you want git
68       checkout-index -f -a.
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70       Intuitiveness is not the goal here. Repeatability is. The reason for
71       the "no arguments means no work" behavior is that from scripts you are
72       supposed to be able to do:
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74           $ find . -name '*.h' -print0 | xargs -0 git checkout-index -f --
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77       which will force all existing *.h files to be replaced with their
78       cached copies. If an empty command line implied "all", then this would
79       force-refresh everything in the index, which was not the point. But
80       since git checkout-index accepts --stdin it would be faster to use:
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82           $ find . -name '*.h' -print0 | git checkout-index -f -z --stdin
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85       The -- is just a good idea when you know the rest will be filenames; it
86       will prevent problems with a filename of, for example, -a. Using -- is
87       probably a good policy in scripts.
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USING --TEMP OR --STAGE=ALL

90       When --temp is used (or implied by --stage=all) git checkout-index will
91       create a temporary file for each index entry being checked out. The
92       index will not be updated with stat information. These options can be
93       useful if the caller needs all stages of all unmerged entries so that
94       the unmerged files can be processed by an external merge tool.
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96       A listing will be written to stdout providing the association of
97       temporary file names to tracked path names. The listing format has two
98       variations:
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100        1. tempname TAB path RS
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102           The first format is what gets used when --stage is omitted or is
103           not --stage=all. The field tempname is the temporary file name
104           holding the file content and path is the tracked path name in the
105           index. Only the requested entries are output.
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107        2. stage1temp SP stage2temp SP stage3tmp TAB path RS
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109           The second format is what gets used when --stage=all. The three
110           stage temporary fields (stage1temp, stage2temp, stage3temp) list
111           the name of the temporary file if there is a stage entry in the
112           index or .  if there is no stage entry. Paths which only have a
113           stage 0 entry will always be omitted from the output.
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115       In both formats RS (the record separator) is newline by default but
116       will be the null byte if -z was passed on the command line. The
117       temporary file names are always safe strings; they will never contain
118       directory separators or whitespace characters. The path field is always
119       relative to the current directory and the temporary file names are
120       always relative to the top level directory.
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122       If the object being copied out to a temporary file is a symbolic link
123       the content of the link will be written to a normal file. It is up to
124       the end-user or the Porcelain to make use of this information.
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EXAMPLES

127       To update and refresh only the files already checked out
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129               $ git checkout-index -n -f -a && git update-index --ignore-missing --refresh
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131
132       Using git checkout-index to "export an entire tree"
133           The prefix ability basically makes it trivial to use git
134           checkout-index as an "export as tree" function. Just read the
135           desired tree into the index, and do:
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137               $ git checkout-index --prefix=git-export-dir/ -a
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139           git checkout-index will "export" the index into the specified
140           directory.
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142           The final "/" is important. The exported name is literally just
143           prefixed with the specified string. Contrast this with the
144           following example.
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146       Export files with a prefix
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148               $ git checkout-index --prefix=.merged- Makefile
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150           This will check out the currently cached copy of Makefile into the
151           file .merged-Makefile.
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GIT

154       Part of the git(1) suite
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158Git 2.21.0                        02/24/2019             GIT-CHECKOUT-INDEX(1)
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