git add and commit single tracked file in one command

Question

I'm looking for the equivalent of git commit -am "blah blah" but for just a single file. If I try:

git commit my.file -am "blah blah"

I get:

fatal: Paths with -a does not make sense.

I looked around but I could only find solutions that suggest using aliases (e.g. this one), but even those don't seem like they could be modified because I need to pass an argument. Do I have to resort to calling git through a shell?

It seems like there should be a simpler option for something that I imagine would be extremely common. Right now I'm stuck with:

git add my.file git commit -m "blah blah"

John Zwinck · Accepted Answer · 2014-10-16 14:35:49Z

44

Just omit the -a which means --all which is not what you want. Do this:

git commit my.file -m "blah blah"

That will commit only my.file, even if other files are staged (by git add).

answered Oct 16, 2014 at 14:35

John Zwinck

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3 Comments

BrodieG Over a year ago

Jeez, can't believe it was that simple. I didn't realize I could commit without staging (the "Changes not staged for commit:" message threw me off). No wonder no one else asked this question... I also missinterpreted the -a to mean add.

Nickolay Over a year ago

This will commit the file even though it's not yet staged by git add. (I didn't believe that at first -- though it's mentioned both in question and in the above comment(!), so explicitly mentioning it here.)

isarandi Over a year ago

However, if a file is yet untracked, this won't commit it.

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