It only adds non-ignored files, to add ignored files use "git update-index --add".

<file>Files to add to the index (see

git-ls-files(1)).

-n

Don't actually add the file(s), just show if they exist.

-v

Be verbose.

--

This option can be used to separate command-line options from the list of files, (useful when filenames might be mistaken for command-line options).

1.

You can put the name of a directory on the command line, and the command will add all files in it and its subdirectories;

2.

Giving the name of a file that is already in index does not run git-update-index on that path.

git-add Documentation/\*.txt

Adds all *.txt files that are not in the index under Documentation directory and its subdirectories.

Note that the asterisk * is quoted from the shell in this example; this lets the command to include the files from subdirectories of Documentation/ directory.

git-add git-*.sh

Adds all git-*.sh scripts that are not in the index. Because this example lets shell expand the asterisk (i.e. you are listing the files explicitly), it does not add subdir/git-foo.sh to the index.