Re: rm and mv commands: should I use them?

On Sun, 6 Jan 2008, Jon Hancock wrote:

So, do I need to use git's mv and rm commands?

Nope.

They are there only to

 (a) make people who are used to do "svn mv" not complain

 (b) simplify things a little teeny bit, by avoiding having to "git add" 
     the new file.

So if you do just a rename, you can do either

	git mv old-file new-file
	git commit

or you can do

	mv old-file new-file
	git add new-file
	git commit -a

and the *result* will be the same (the "git commit -a" is there to 
automatically pick up the fact that "old-file" went away: you could have 
done it with "git rm old-file" too, or "git add -u" or any number of 
other ways that update the index).

Can't I just rename, add, and remove files using any means I like and 
then just ensure my "index" is staged properly when I do a commit?

Absolutely. And depending on your workflow, that may well be the right 
thing to do. 

In particular, this all means that it's perfectly fine to make changes to 
a git repository using *any* non-git-aware tools, including things like 
graphical file managers etc.

Additionally, is there a simple procedure with git to say: "I want to 
version exactly what is in my working tree.  If I removed something or 
added something, just handle it".  This is sort of what "git add ." 
does, but "git add" doesn't handling things I removed or moved, correct?

You should be able to do that with either

	git add .
	git commit -a

or if you don't want to do a commit, you can do a

	git add -u
	git add .

where the "git add -u" will look at any files git already knows and update 
them (which includes removing them if they are gone), and then "git add ." 
will add any new files.

		Linus