Compare `git add .` vs `git add -A`
Both of these will stage all files, including new files (which git commit -a
misses) and deleted files.
The difference is that git add -A
also stages files in higher directories that still belong to the same git repository. Here’s an example:
/my-repo
.git/
subfolder/
nestedfile.txt
rootfile.txt
If your current working directory is /my-repo
, and that’s the root of this git repo (thus the .git/
folder), these two commands will do the same thing.
But if you rm rootfile.txt
, then cd subfolder
, git add .
will not stage the change that ../rootfile.txt
has been deleted, because git add .
only affects the current directory and subdirectories. git add -A
, on the other hand, will stage this change.