How git detects changes during commit?

Say you check out a directory of 100 files. You edit 5 of the files, and you
go to commit the directory back. How does git know which of the 100 files
were modified (not all of them were)?
-- 
View this message in context: http://git.661346.n2.nabble.com/How-git-detects-changes-during-commit-tp5680208p5680208.html
Sent from the git mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

Hi,

longphant wrote:

Say you check out a directory of 100 files. You edit 5 of the files, and you
go to commit the directory back. How does git know which of the 100 files
were modified (not all of them were)?

The lstat system call.  See the git-update-index(1) manual for some
hints (since most high-level commands do the equivalent of
"git update-index --refresh -q" before working with the work tree).

Hope that helps,
Jonathan

Thanks, that is a lot of help. I am a complete noob to version control, so I
was wondering if you could give me a noobie tutorial of how it works. Does
git lstat each file that is committed and then check the time of last
modification? Or does it lstat the directory?
-- 
View this message in context: http://git.661346.n2.nabble.com/How-git-detects-changes-during-commit-tp5680208p5683536.html
Sent from the git mailing list archive at Nabble.com.