git-update-cache(1) Manual Page

NAME

git - update-cache - Modifies the index or directory cache

SYNOPSIS

git-update-cache [—add] [—remove] [—refresh] [—replace] [—ignore-missing] [—force-remove] [—cacheinfo <mode> <object> <file>]* [—] [<file>]*

DESCRIPTION

Modifies the index or directory cache. Each file mentioned is updated into the cache and any unmerged or needs updating state is cleared.

The way "git-update-cache" handles files it is told about can be modified using the various options:

OPTIONS

—add
If a specified file isn't in the cache already then it's added. Default behaviour is to ignore new files.
—remove
If a specified file is in the cache but is missing then it's removed. Default behaviour is to ignore removed file.
—refresh
Looks at the current cache and checks to see if merges or updates are needed by checking stat() information.
—ignore-missing
Ignores missing files during a —refresh
—cacheinfo <mode> <object> <path>
Directly insert the specified info into the cache.
—force-remove
Remove the file from the index even when the working directory still has such a file. (Implies —remove.)
—replace
By default, when a file path exists in the index, git-update-cache refuses an attempt to add path/file. Similarly if a file path/file exists, a file path cannot be added. With —replace flag, existing entries that conflicts with the entry being added are automatically removed with warning messages.
Do not interpret any more arguments as options.
<file>
Files to act on. Note that files begining with . are discarded. This includes ./file and dir/./file. If you don't want this, then use cleaner names. The same applies to directories ending / and paths with //

Using —refresh

—refresh does not calculate a new sha1 file or bring the cache up-to-date for mode/content changes. But what it does do is to "re-match" the stat information of a file with the cache, so that you can refresh the cache for a file that hasn't been changed but where the stat entry is out of date.

For example, you'd want to do this after doing a "git-read-tree", to link up the stat cache details with the proper files.

Using —cacheinfo

—cacheinfo is used to register a file that is not in the current working directory. This is useful for minimum-checkout merging.

To pretend you have a file with mode and sha1 at path, say:

$ git-update-cache --cacheinfo mode sha1 path

To update and refresh only the files already checked out:

git-checkout-cache -n -f -a && git-update-cache --ignore-missing --refresh

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 git(7) suite