git-status(1) — Linux manual page
GIT-STATUS(1) Git Manual GIT-STATUS(1)
NAME
git-status - Show the working tree status
SYNOPSIS
git status [<options>] [--] [<pathspec>...]
DESCRIPTION
Displays paths that have differences between the index file and
the current HEAD commit, paths that have differences between the
working tree and the index file, and paths in the working tree
that are not tracked by Git (and are not ignored by
gitignore(5)). The first are what you would commit by running git
commit; the second and third are what you could commit by running
git add before running git commit.
OPTIONS
-s, --short
Give the output in the short-format.
-b, --branch
Show the branch and tracking info even in short-format.
--show-stash
Show the number of entries currently stashed away.
--porcelain[=<version>]
Give the output in an easy-to-parse format for scripts. This
is similar to the short output, but will remain stable across
Git versions and regardless of user configuration. See below
for details.
The version parameter is used to specify the format version.
This is optional and defaults to the original version v1
format.
--long
Give the output in the long-format. This is the default.
-v, --verbose
In addition to the names of files that have been changed,
also show the textual changes that are staged to be committed
(i.e., like the output of git diff --cached). If -v is
specified twice, then also show the changes in the working
tree that have not yet been staged (i.e., like the output of
git diff).
-u[<mode>], --untracked-files[=<mode>]
Show untracked files.
The mode parameter is used to specify the handling of
untracked files. It is optional: it defaults to all, and if
specified, it must be stuck to the option (e.g. -uno, but
not -u no).
The possible options are:
• no - Show no untracked files.
• normal - Shows untracked files and directories.
• all - Also shows individual files in untracked
directories.
When -u option is not used, untracked files and directories
are shown (i.e. the same as specifying normal), to help you
avoid forgetting to add newly created files. Because it takes
extra work to find untracked files in the filesystem, this
mode may take some time in a large working tree. Consider
enabling untracked cache and split index if supported (see
git update-index --untracked-cache and git update-index
--split-index), Otherwise you can use no to have git status
return more quickly without showing untracked files. All
usual spellings for Boolean value true are taken as normal
and false as no.
The default can be changed using the
status.showUntrackedFiles configuration variable documented
in git-config(1).
--ignore-submodules[=<when>]
Ignore changes to submodules when looking for changes. <when>
can be either "none", "untracked", "dirty" or "all", which is
the default. Using "none" will consider the submodule
modified when it either contains untracked or modified files
or its HEAD differs from the commit recorded in the
superproject and can be used to override any settings of the
ignore option in git-config(1) or gitmodules(5). When
"untracked" is used submodules are not considered dirty when
they only contain untracked content (but they are still
scanned for modified content). Using "dirty" ignores all
changes to the work tree of submodules, only changes to the
commits stored in the superproject are shown (this was the
behavior before 1.7.0). Using "all" hides all changes to
submodules (and suppresses the output of submodule summaries
when the config option status.submoduleSummary is set).
--ignored[=<mode>]
Show ignored files as well.
The mode parameter is used to specify the handling of ignored
files. It is optional: it defaults to traditional.
The possible options are:
• traditional - Shows ignored files and directories, unless
--untracked-files=all is specified, in which case
individual files in ignored directories are displayed.
• no - Show no ignored files.
• matching - Shows ignored files and directories matching
an ignore pattern.
When matching mode is specified, paths that explicitly match
an ignored pattern are shown. If a directory matches an
ignore pattern, then it is shown, but not paths contained in
the ignored directory. If a directory does not match an
ignore pattern, but all contents are ignored, then the
directory is not shown, but all contents are shown.
-z
Terminate entries with NUL, instead of LF. This implies the
--porcelain=v1 output format if no other format is given.
--column[=<options>], --no-column
Display untracked files in columns. See configuration
variable column.status for option syntax. --column and
--no-column without options are equivalent to always and
never respectively.
--ahead-behind, --no-ahead-behind
Display or do not display detailed ahead/behind counts for
the branch relative to its upstream branch. Defaults to true.
--renames, --no-renames
Turn on/off rename detection regardless of user
configuration. See also git-diff(1) --no-renames.
--find-renames[=<n>]
Turn on rename detection, optionally setting the similarity
threshold. See also git-diff(1) --find-renames.
<pathspec>...
See the pathspec entry in gitglossary(7).
OUTPUT
The output from this command is designed to be used as a commit
template comment. The default, long format, is designed to be
human readable, verbose and descriptive. Its contents and format
are subject to change at any time.
The paths mentioned in the output, unlike many other Git
commands, are made relative to the current directory if you are
working in a subdirectory (this is on purpose, to help cutting
and pasting). See the status.relativePaths config option below.
Short Format
In the short-format, the status of each path is shown as one of
these forms
XY PATH
XY ORIG_PATH -> PATH
where ORIG_PATH is where the renamed/copied contents came from.
ORIG_PATH is only shown when the entry is renamed or copied. The
XY is a two-letter status code.
The fields (including the ->) are separated from each other by a
single space. If a filename contains whitespace or other
nonprintable characters, that field will be quoted in the manner
of a C string literal: surrounded by ASCII double quote (34)
characters, and with interior special characters
backslash-escaped.
There are three different types of states that are shown using
this format, and each one uses the XY syntax differently:
• When a merge is occurring and the merge was successful, or
outside of a merge situation, X shows the status of the index
and Y shows the status of the working tree.
• When a merge conflict has occurred and has not yet been
resolved, X and Y show the state introduced by each head of
the merge, relative to the common ancestor. These paths are
said to be unmerged.
• When a path is untracked, X and Y are always the same, since
they are unknown to the index. ?? is used for untracked
paths. Ignored files are not listed unless --ignored is used;
if it is, ignored files are indicated by !!.
Note that the term merge here also includes rebases using the
default --merge strategy, cherry-picks, and anything else using
the merge machinery.
In the following table, these three classes are shown in separate
sections, and these characters are used for X and Y fields for
the first two sections that show tracked paths:
• ' ' = unmodified
• M = modified
• T = file type changed (regular file, symbolic link or
submodule)
• A = added
• D = deleted
• R = renamed
• C = copied (if config option status.renames is set to
"copies")
• U = updated but unmerged
X Y Meaning
-------------------------------------------------
[AMD] not updated
M [ MTD] updated in index
T [ MTD] type changed in index
A [ MTD] added to index
D deleted from index
R [ MTD] renamed in index
C [ MTD] copied in index
[MTARC] index and work tree matches
[ MTARC] M work tree changed since index
[ MTARC] T type changed in work tree since index
[ MTARC] D deleted in work tree
R renamed in work tree
C copied in work tree
-------------------------------------------------
D D unmerged, both deleted
A U unmerged, added by us
U D unmerged, deleted by them
U A unmerged, added by them
D U unmerged, deleted by us
A A unmerged, both added
U U unmerged, both modified
-------------------------------------------------
? ? untracked
! ! ignored
-------------------------------------------------
Submodules have more state and instead report
• M = the submodule has a different HEAD than recorded in the
index
• m = the submodule has modified content
• ? = the submodule has untracked files
This is since modified content or untracked files in a submodule
cannot be added via git add in the superproject to prepare a
commit.
m and ? are applied recursively. For example if a nested
submodule in a submodule contains an untracked file, this is
reported as ? as well.
If -b is used the short-format status is preceded by a line
## branchname tracking info
Porcelain Format Version 1
Version 1 porcelain format is similar to the short format, but is
guaranteed not to change in a backwards-incompatible way between
Git versions or based on user configuration. This makes it ideal
for parsing by scripts. The description of the short format above
also describes the porcelain format, with a few exceptions:
1. The user’s color.status configuration is not respected; color
will always be off.
2. The user’s status.relativePaths configuration is not
respected; paths shown will always be relative to the
repository root.
There is also an alternate -z format recommended for machine
parsing. In that format, the status field is the same, but some
other things change. First, the -> is omitted from rename entries
and the field order is reversed (e.g from -> to becomes to from).
Second, a NUL (ASCII 0) follows each filename, replacing space as
a field separator and the terminating newline (but a space still
separates the status field from the first filename). Third,
filenames containing special characters are not specially
formatted; no quoting or backslash-escaping is performed.
Any submodule changes are reported as modified M instead of m or
single ?.
Porcelain Format Version 2
Version 2 format adds more detailed information about the state
of the worktree and changed items. Version 2 also defines an
extensible set of easy to parse optional headers.
Header lines start with "#" and are added in response to specific
command line arguments. Parsers should ignore headers they don’t
recognize.
Branch Headers
If --branch is given, a series of header lines are printed
with information about the current branch.
Line Notes
------------------------------------------------------------
# branch.oid <commit> | (initial) Current commit.
# branch.head <branch> | (detached) Current branch.
# branch.upstream <upstream-branch> If upstream is set.
# branch.ab +<ahead> -<behind> If upstream is set and
the commit is present.
------------------------------------------------------------
Stash Information
If --show-stash is given, one line is printed showing the
number of stash entries if non-zero:
# stash <N>
Changed Tracked Entries
Following the headers, a series of lines are printed for
tracked entries. One of three different line formats may be
used to describe an entry depending on the type of change.
Tracked entries are printed in an undefined order; parsers
should allow for a mixture of the 3 line types in any order.
Ordinary changed entries have the following format:
1 <XY> <sub> <mH> <mI> <mW> <hH> <hI> <path>
Renamed or copied entries have the following format:
2 <XY> <sub> <mH> <mI> <mW> <hH> <hI> <X><score> <path><sep><origPath>
Field Meaning
--------------------------------------------------------
<XY> A 2 character field containing the staged and
unstaged XY values described in the short format,
with unchanged indicated by a "." rather than
a space.
<sub> A 4 character field describing the submodule state.
"N..." when the entry is not a submodule.
"S<c><m><u>" when the entry is a submodule.
<c> is "C" if the commit changed; otherwise ".".
<m> is "M" if it has tracked changes; otherwise ".".
<u> is "U" if there are untracked changes; otherwise ".".
<mH> The octal file mode in HEAD.
<mI> The octal file mode in the index.
<mW> The octal file mode in the worktree.
<hH> The object name in HEAD.
<hI> The object name in the index.
<X><score> The rename or copy score (denoting the percentage
of similarity between the source and target of the
move or copy). For example "R100" or "C75".
<path> The pathname. In a renamed/copied entry, this
is the target path.
<sep> When the `-z` option is used, the 2 pathnames are separated
with a NUL (ASCII 0x00) byte; otherwise, a tab (ASCII 0x09)
byte separates them.
<origPath> The pathname in the commit at HEAD or in the index.
This is only present in a renamed/copied entry, and
tells where the renamed/copied contents came from.
--------------------------------------------------------
Unmerged entries have the following format; the first
character is a "u" to distinguish from ordinary changed
entries.
u <XY> <sub> <m1> <m2> <m3> <mW> <h1> <h2> <h3> <path>
Field Meaning
--------------------------------------------------------
<XY> A 2 character field describing the conflict type
as described in the short format.
<sub> A 4 character field describing the submodule state
as described above.
<m1> The octal file mode in stage 1.
<m2> The octal file mode in stage 2.
<m3> The octal file mode in stage 3.
<mW> The octal file mode in the worktree.
<h1> The object name in stage 1.
<h2> The object name in stage 2.
<h3> The object name in stage 3.
<path> The pathname.
--------------------------------------------------------
Other Items
Following the tracked entries (and if requested), a series of
lines will be printed for untracked and then ignored items
found in the worktree.
Untracked items have the following format:
? <path>
Ignored items have the following format:
! <path>
Pathname Format Notes and -z
When the -z option is given, pathnames are printed as is and
without any quoting and lines are terminated with a NUL
(ASCII 0x00) byte.
Without the -z option, pathnames with "unusual" characters
are quoted as explained for the configuration variable
core.quotePath (see git-config(1)).
CONFIGURATION
The command honors color.status (or status.color — they mean the
same thing and the latter is kept for backward compatibility) and
color.status.<slot> configuration variables to colorize its
output.
If the config variable status.relativePaths is set to false, then
all paths shown are relative to the repository root, not to the
current directory.
If status.submoduleSummary is set to a non zero number or true
(identical to -1 or an unlimited number), the submodule summary
will be enabled for the long format and a summary of commits for
modified submodules will be shown (see --summary-limit option of
git-submodule(1)). Please note that the summary output from the
status command will be suppressed for all submodules when
diff.ignoreSubmodules is set to all or only for those submodules
where submodule.<name>.ignore=all. To also view the summary for
ignored submodules you can either use the
--ignore-submodules=dirty command line option or the git
submodule summary command, which shows a similar output but does
not honor these settings.
BACKGROUND REFRESH
By default, git status will automatically refresh the index,
updating the cached stat information from the working tree and
writing out the result. Writing out the updated index is an
optimization that isn’t strictly necessary (status computes the
values for itself, but writing them out is just to save
subsequent programs from repeating our computation). When status
is run in the background, the lock held during the write may
conflict with other simultaneous processes, causing them to fail.
Scripts running status in the background should consider using
git --no-optional-locks status (see git(1) for details).
UNTRACKED FILES AND PERFORMANCE
git status can be very slow in large worktrees if/when it needs
to search for untracked files and directories. There are many
configuration options available to speed this up by either
avoiding the work or making use of cached results from previous
Git commands. There is no single optimum set of settings right
for everyone. We’ll list a summary of the relevant options to
help you, but before going into the list, you may want to run git
status again, because your configuration may already be caching
git status results, so it could be faster on subsequent runs.
• The --untracked-files=no flag or the
status.showUntrackedFiles=no config (see above for both):
indicate that git status should not report untracked files.
This is the fastest option. git status will not list the
untracked files, so you need to be careful to remember if you
create any new files and manually git add them.
• advice.statusUoption=false (see git-config(1)): setting this
variable to false disables the warning message given when
enumerating untracked files takes more than 2 seconds. In a
large project, it may take longer and the user may have
already accepted the trade off (e.g. using "-uno" may not be
an acceptable option for the user), in which case, there is
no point issuing the warning message, and in such a case,
disabling the warning may be the best.
• core.untrackedCache=true (see git-update-index(1)): enable
the untracked cache feature and only search directories that
have been modified since the previous git status command. Git
remembers the set of untracked files within each directory
and assumes that if a directory has not been modified, then
the set of untracked files within has not changed. This is
much faster than enumerating the contents of every directory,
but still not without cost, because Git still has to search
for the set of modified directories. The untracked cache is
stored in the .git/index file. The reduced cost of searching
for untracked files is offset slightly by the increased size
of the index and the cost of keeping it up-to-date. That
reduced search time is usually worth the additional size.
• core.untrackedCache=true and core.fsmonitor=true or
core.fsmonitor=<hook-command-pathname> (see
git-update-index(1)): enable both the untracked cache and
FSMonitor features and only search directories that have been
modified since the previous git status command. This is
faster than using just the untracked cache alone because Git
can also avoid searching for modified directories. Git only
has to enumerate the exact set of directories that have
changed recently. While the FSMonitor feature can be enabled
without the untracked cache, the benefits are greatly reduced
in that case.
Note that after you turn on the untracked cache and/or FSMonitor
features it may take a few git status commands for the various
caches to warm up before you see improved command times. This is
normal.
SEE ALSO
gitignore(5)
GIT
Part of the git(1) suite
COLOPHON
This page is part of the git (Git distributed version control
system) project. Information about the project can be found at
⟨http://git-scm.com/⟩. If you have a bug report for this manual
page, see ⟨http://git-scm.com/community⟩. This page was obtained
from the project's upstream Git repository
⟨https://github.com/git/git.git⟩ on 2024-06-14. (At that time,
the date of the most recent commit that was found in the
repository was 2024-06-12.) If you discover any rendering
problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there
is a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
(which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
man-pages@man7.org
Git 2.45.2.492.gd63586 2024-06-12 GIT-STATUS(1)
Pages that refer to this page: git(1), git-add(1), git-commit(1), git-config(1), git-ls-files(1), git-submodule(1), giteveryday(7)