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 [--ignore-skip-worktree-bits]
13 [-z] [--stdin]
14 [--] [<file>...]
15
17 Copies all listed files from the index to the working directory (not
18 overwriting existing files).
19
21 -u, --index
22 update stat information for the checked out entries in the index
23 file.
24 -q, --quiet
26 be quiet if files exist or are not in the index
27 -f, --force
29 forces overwrite of existing files
30 -a, --all
32 checks out all files in the index except for those with the
33 skip-worktree bit set (see --ignore-skip-worktree-bits). Cannot be
34 used together with explicit filenames.
35 -n, --no-create
37 Don’t checkout new files, only refresh files already checked out.
38 --prefix=<string>
40 When creating files, prepend <string> (usually a directory
41 including a trailing /)
42 --stage=<number>|all
44 Instead of checking out unmerged entries, copy out the files from
45 the named stage. <number> must be between 1 and 3. Note:
46 --stage=all automatically implies --temp.
47 --temp
49 Instead of copying the files to the working directory, write the
50 content to temporary files. The temporary name associations will be
51 written to stdout.
52 --ignore-skip-worktree-bits
54 Check out all files, including those with the skip-worktree bit
55 set.
56 --stdin
58 Instead of taking a list of paths from the command line, read the
59 list of paths from the standard input. Paths are separated by LF
60 (i.e. one path per line) by default.
61 -z
63 Only meaningful with --stdin; paths are separated with NUL
64 character instead of LF.
65 --
67 Do not interpret any more arguments as options.
68 The order of the flags used to matter, but not anymore.
70 Just doing git checkout-index does nothing. You probably meant git
72 checkout-index -a. And if you want to force it, you want git
73 checkout-index -f -a.
74 Intuitiveness is not the goal here. Repeatability is. The reason for
76 the "no arguments means no work" behavior is that from scripts you are
77 supposed to be able to do:
78 $ find . -name '*.h' -print0 | xargs -0 git checkout-index -f --
80 which will force all existing *.h files to be replaced with their
82 cached copies. If an empty command line implied "all", then this would
83 force-refresh everything in the index, which was not the point. But
84 since git checkout-index accepts --stdin it would be faster to use:
85 $ find . -name '*.h' -print0 | git checkout-index -f -z --stdin
87 The -- is just a good idea when you know the rest will be filenames; it
89 will prevent problems with a filename of, for example, -a. Using -- is
90 probably a good policy in scripts.
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93 When --temp is used (or implied by --stage=all) git checkout-index will
94 create a temporary file for each index entry being checked out. The
95 index will not be updated with stat information. These options can be
96 useful if the caller needs all stages of all unmerged entries so that
97 the unmerged files can be processed by an external merge tool.
98 A listing will be written to stdout providing the association of
100 temporary file names to tracked path names. The listing format has two
101 variations:
102 1. tempname TAB path RS
104 The first format is what gets used when --stage is omitted or is
106 not --stage=all. The field tempname is the temporary file name
107 holding the file content and path is the tracked path name in the
108 index. Only the requested entries are output.
109 2. stage1temp SP stage2temp SP stage3tmp TAB path RS
111 The second format is what gets used when --stage=all. The three
113 stage temporary fields (stage1temp, stage2temp, stage3temp) list
114 the name of the temporary file if there is a stage entry in the
115 index or . if there is no stage entry. Paths which only have a
116 stage 0 entry will always be omitted from the output.
117 In both formats RS (the record separator) is newline by default but
119 will be the null byte if -z was passed on the command line. The
120 temporary file names are always safe strings; they will never contain
121 directory separators or whitespace characters. The path field is always
122 relative to the current directory and the temporary file names are
123 always relative to the top level directory.
124 If the object being copied out to a temporary file is a symbolic link
126 the content of the link will be written to a normal file. It is up to
127 the end-user or the Porcelain to make use of this information.
128
130 To update and refresh only the files already checked out
131 $ git checkout-index -n -f -a && git update-index --ignore-missing --refresh
133 Using git checkout-index to "export an entire tree"
135 The prefix ability basically makes it trivial to use git
136 checkout-index as an "export as tree" function. Just read the
137 desired tree into the index, and do:
138 $ git checkout-index --prefix=git-export-dir/ -a
140 git checkout-index will "export" the index into the specified
142 directory.
143 The final "/" is important. The exported name is literally just
145 prefixed with the specified string. Contrast this with the
146 following example.
147 Export files with a prefix
149 $ git checkout-index --prefix=.merged- Makefile
151 This will check out the currently cached copy of Makefile into the
153 file .merged-Makefile.
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156 Part of the git(1) suite
157Git 2.43.0 11/20/2023 GIT-CHECKOUT-INDEX(1)