How to "git add" specified type of files?

Question

Usually we add new files like below:

git add .

That will add all files. But I'd like to add only the specified type of files, e.g. *.c, *.cpp, *.h... So I will do it like this:

git add "*.c"
git add "*.h"
git add "*.cpp"

But this seems not convenient, do you have better solution?

maybe a combination of ".gitignore" and the normal "git add ." ? Do you want to always ignore the other files? — Thilo, Jan 22 '13 at 03:04
Yes. Some file types are not known to me, but I am sure they are not source codes. I know .gitignore(I need to list all the ignored types, not easy for me), but is there .gitaccept(you know what I mean)? — Tom Xue, Jan 22 '13 at 03:07
In [my answer](http://stackoverflow.com/a/14451324/237105) there's a direct way to achieve `.gitaccept` behaviour. — Antony Hatchkins, Jan 22 '13 at 08:20

Antony Hatchkins · Accepted Answer · 2013-01-22T04:01:10.230

9

.gitignore:

*
!*/
!*.c
!*.h
!*.cpp

This will work with subdirectories as well.

edited Jan 22 '13 at 04:01

answered Jan 22 '13 at 03:54

Antony Hatchkins

This tells git not to ignore subdirectories. If you don't need files in subdirectories, omit this line. – Antony Hatchkins Jan 22 '13 at 09:32

Zombo · Answer 2 · 2013-05-09T02:56:31.080

1

Perhaps you could make an alias

git config alias.accept "!find|egrep '\.(c|h|cpp)$'|xargs git add"

then run like this

git accept

edited May 09 '13 at 02:56

answered Jan 22 '13 at 03:48

Zombo

Since globbing will be done by `bash`, it will not go into subdirectories. At least `git add **/*{c,h,cpp}` – Antony Hatchkins Jan 22 '13 at 04:58
1

Other people working on the project will be puzzled seeing many untracked and unignored files. – Antony Hatchkins Jan 22 '13 at 05:24
Updated version (1) will add every single file in matching directories (eg named `a.h`) – Antony Hatchkins Jan 22 '13 at 08:14
(2) will walk into `.git` directory which is quite huge sometimes – Antony Hatchkins Jan 22 '13 at 08:14
(3) `find` can do filtering itself presumably more efficiently than `egrep` in pipe – Antony Hatchkins Jan 22 '13 at 08:15
(4) wont work for files with linebreaks in names (use `-x0` in `xargs` when the project is not yours) – Antony Hatchkins Jan 22 '13 at 08:15
`--global` applies to **all** repositories, *including* uncreated repositories - if you're `ignoring` a large set of files, doing this on a per-project basis is probably safer. – simont Jan 22 '13 at 08:53

2 Answers2