List files with git ls-files from root instead of current working directory

Question

I'm looking for a command similar to the following, but that always lists from the repository root, rather than the current working directory:

git ls-files --cached --others --exclude-standard

If possible I'd rather not use bash/batch, since I'm looking for a cross-platform solution.

score 12 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:10

12

If Git aliases aren't an option, it can be done in 2 commands:

git ls-files $(git rev-parse --show-toplevel)

edited May 23 '17 at 12:10

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answered Nov 14 '15 at 23:50

Bluu

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This is nice because it gives me the relative path to those files rather than the path from root - thanks! – NextInLine Jun 28 '18 at 22:10
this is helpful for scripts – CervEd Oct 05 '21 at 14:21

score 7 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:00

7

If you can create an alias,

git config --global alias.ls-files-root "! git ls-files"

Then you should be able to do

git ls-files-root --cached --others --exclude-standard

Explanation: Aliases starting with '!' are executed as shell commands from the top-level directory. Related: Is there a way to get the git root directory in one command?.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:00

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answered May 12 '15 at 12:05

tom

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On Windows it needs double quotes - do double quotes also work for Linux? – orlp May 12 '15 at 12:36
No (in some shells, e.g. `bash`, `!` performs history expansion inside double quotes but not single quotes). I'll have to think about it -- double quotes won't work on Linux, single quotes and backslashes won't work on Windows... – tom May 12 '15 at 12:43
PowerShell on Windows should work with single quotes, if that's any help. – tom May 12 '15 at 13:00
It's been a while, but I just realised you can use `"! git ls-files"` in bash (the space after the exclamation mark prevents history expansion). That should be portable. – tom Jun 17 '15 at 02:10

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 23 '23 at 12:43

Commands that expect pathspecs as an arg generally allow for leading :/ to mean the root of the working tree. So you can use:

git ls-files --full-name :/

This is better than combining with git rev-parse --show-toplevel output, because the latter won't allow you to find specific file in the repo. I.e. this: git ls-files -- $(git rev-parse --show-toplevel)"*filename.c" won't work, but this git ls-files ":/*filename.c" does. And it's shorter too.

List files with git ls-files from root instead of current working directory

3 Answers3