git-commit-vandalism/Documentation/git-checkout-index.txt
Shawn Pearce 9debe63d10 Teach git-checkout-index to read filenames from stdin.
Since git-checkout-index is often used from scripts which
may have a stream of filenames they wish to checkout it is
more convenient to use --stdin than xargs.  On platforms
where fork performance is currently sub-optimal and
the length of a command line is limited (*cough* Cygwin
*cough*) running a single git-checkout-index process for
a large number of files beats spawning it multiple times
from xargs.

File names are still accepted on the command line if
--stdin is not supplied.  Nothing is performed if no files
are supplied on the command line or by stdin.

Signed-off-by: Shawn O. Pearce <spearce@spearce.org>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <junkio@cox.net>
2006-03-01 01:15:31 -08:00

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git-checkout-index(1)
=====================
NAME
----
git-checkout-index - Copy files from the index to the working directory
SYNOPSIS
--------
[verse]
'git-checkout-index' [-u] [-q] [-a] [-f] [-n] [--prefix=<string>]
[--stage=<number>]
[-z] [--stdin]
[--] [<file>]\*
DESCRIPTION
-----------
Will copy all files listed from the index to the working directory
(not overwriting existing files).
OPTIONS
-------
-u|--index::
update stat information for the checked out entries in
the index file.
-q|--quiet::
be quiet if files exist or are not in the index
-f|--force::
forces overwrite of existing files
-a|--all::
checks out all files in the index. Cannot be used
together with explicit filenames.
-n|--no-create::
Don't checkout new files, only refresh files already checked
out.
--prefix=<string>::
When creating files, prepend <string> (usually a directory
including a trailing /)
--stage=<number>::
Instead of checking out unmerged entries, copy out the
files from named stage. <number> must be between 1 and 3.
--stdin::
Instead of taking list of paths from the command line,
read list of paths from the standard input. Paths are
separated by LF (i.e. one path per line) by default.
-z::
Only meaningful with `--stdin`; paths are separated with
NUL character instead of LF.
--::
Do not interpret any more arguments as options.
The order of the flags used to matter, but not anymore.
Just doing `git-checkout-index` does nothing. You probably meant
`git-checkout-index -a`. And if you want to force it, you want
`git-checkout-index -f -a`.
Intuitiveness is not the goal here. Repeatability is. The reason for
the "no arguments means no work" behavior is that from scripts you are
supposed to be able to do:
----------------
$ find . -name '*.h' -print0 | xargs -0 git-checkout-index -f --
----------------
which will force all existing `*.h` files to be replaced with their
cached copies. If an empty command line implied "all", then this would
force-refresh everything in the index, which was not the point. But
since git-checkout-index accepts --stdin it would be faster to use:
----------------
$ find . -name '*.h' -print0 | git-checkout-index -f -z --stdin
----------------
The `--` is just a good idea when you know the rest will be filenames;
it will prevent problems with a filename of, for example, `-a`.
Using `--` is probably a good policy in scripts.
EXAMPLES
--------
To update and refresh only the files already checked out::
+
----------------
$ git-checkout-index -n -f -a && git-update-index --ignore-missing --refresh
----------------
Using `git-checkout-index` to "export an entire tree"::
The prefix ability basically makes it trivial to use
`git-checkout-index` as an "export as tree" function.
Just read the desired tree into the index, and do:
+
----------------
$ git-checkout-index --prefix=git-export-dir/ -a
----------------
+
`git-checkout-index` will "export" the index into the specified
directory.
+
The final "/" is important. The exported name is literally just
prefixed with the specified string. Contrast this with the
following example.
Export files with a prefix::
+
----------------
$ git-checkout-index --prefix=.merged- Makefile
----------------
+
This will check out the currently cached copy of `Makefile`
into the file `.merged-Makefile`.
Author
------
Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
Documentation
--------------
Documentation by David Greaves,
Junio C Hamano and the git-list <git@vger.kernel.org>.
GIT
---
Part of the gitlink:git[7] suite