1GIT-CHECKOUT-INDEX(1) Git Manual GIT-CHECKOUT-INDEX(1)
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6 git-checkout-index - Copy files from the index to the working tree
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9 git checkout-index [-u] [-q] [-a] [-f] [-n] [--prefix=<string>]
10 [--stage=<number>|all]
11 [--temp]
12 [-z] [--stdin]
13 [--] [<file>...]
14
16 Will copy all files listed from the index to the working directory (not
17 overwriting existing files).
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20 -u, --index
21 update stat information for the checked out entries in the index
22 file.
23 -q, --quiet
25 be quiet if files exist or are not in the index
26 -f, --force
28 forces overwrite of existing files
29 -a, --all
31 checks out all files in the index. Cannot be used together with
32 explicit filenames.
33 -n, --no-create
35 Don’t checkout new files, only refresh files already checked out.
36 --prefix=<string>
38 When creating files, prepend <string> (usually a directory
39 including a trailing /)
40 --stage=<number>|all
42 Instead of checking out unmerged entries, copy out the files from
43 named stage. <number> must be between 1 and 3. Note: --stage=all
44 automatically implies --temp.
45 --temp
47 Instead of copying the files to the working directory write the
48 content to temporary files. The temporary name associations will be
49 written to stdout.
50 --stdin
52 Instead of taking list of paths from the command line, read list of
53 paths from the standard input. Paths are separated by LF (i.e. one
54 path per line) by default.
55 -z
57 Only meaningful with --stdin; paths are separated with NUL
58 character instead of LF.
59 --
61 Do not interpret any more arguments as options.
62 The order of the flags used to matter, but not anymore.
64 Just doing git checkout-index does nothing. You probably meant git
66 checkout-index -a. And if you want to force it, you want git
67 checkout-index -f -a.
68 Intuitiveness is not the goal here. Repeatability is. The reason for
70 the "no arguments means no work" behavior is that from scripts you are
71 supposed to be able to do:
72 $ find . -name '*.h' -print0 | xargs -0 git checkout-index -f --
74 which will force all existing *.h files to be replaced with their
76 cached copies. If an empty command line implied "all", then this would
77 force-refresh everything in the index, which was not the point. But
78 since git checkout-index accepts --stdin it would be faster to use:
79 $ find . -name '*.h' -print0 | git checkout-index -f -z --stdin
81 The -- is just a good idea when you know the rest will be filenames; it
83 will prevent problems with a filename of, for example, -a. Using -- is
84 probably a good policy in scripts.
85
87 When --temp is used (or implied by --stage=all) git checkout-index will
88 create a temporary file for each index entry being checked out. The
89 index will not be updated with stat information. These options can be
90 useful if the caller needs all stages of all unmerged entries so that
91 the unmerged files can be processed by an external merge tool.
92 A listing will be written to stdout providing the association of
94 temporary file names to tracked path names. The listing format has two
95 variations:
96 1. tempname TAB path RS
98 The first format is what gets used when --stage is omitted or is
100 not --stage=all. The field tempname is the temporary file name
101 holding the file content and path is the tracked path name in the
102 index. Only the requested entries are output.
103 2. stage1temp SP stage2temp SP stage3tmp TAB path RS
105 The second format is what gets used when --stage=all. The three
107 stage temporary fields (stage1temp, stage2temp, stage3temp) list
108 the name of the temporary file if there is a stage entry in the
109 index or . if there is no stage entry. Paths which only have a
110 stage 0 entry will always be omitted from the output.
111 In both formats RS (the record separator) is newline by default but
113 will be the null byte if -z was passed on the command line. The
114 temporary file names are always safe strings; they will never contain
115 directory separators or whitespace characters. The path field is always
116 relative to the current directory and the temporary file names are
117 always relative to the top level directory.
118 If the object being copied out to a temporary file is a symbolic link
120 the content of the link will be written to a normal file. It is up to
121 the end-user or the Porcelain to make use of this information.
122
124 To update and refresh only the files already checked out
125 $ git checkout-index -n -f -a && git update-index --ignore-missing --refresh
127 Using git checkout-index to "export an entire tree"
129 The prefix ability basically makes it trivial to use git
130 checkout-index as an "export as tree" function. Just read the
131 desired tree into the index, and do:
132 $ git checkout-index --prefix=git-export-dir/ -a
134 git checkout-index will "export" the index into the specified
136 directory.
137 The final "/" is important. The exported name is literally just
139 prefixed with the specified string. Contrast this with the
140 following example.
141 Export files with a prefix
143 $ git checkout-index --prefix=.merged- Makefile
145 This will check out the currently cached copy of Makefile into the
147 file .merged-Makefile.
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150 Part of the git(1) suite
151Git 2.31.1 2021-03-26 GIT-CHECKOUT-INDEX(1)