Git Hunks: Stage hunks of code

Git is one of my favorite software. It always impresses me. Here is one of the awesome tools in git.

Let us consider a scenario where you modify a file and you just want to stage a part of the file. You stage hunk by hunk in git using the --patch option on git add. When you do git add . -p you will be presented with each hunk that is changed and various options like this

diff –git a/sample.txt b/sample.txt
index 65d26ae..1618d01 100644
--— a/sample.txt
+++ b/sample.txt
@@ -1,3 +1,5 @@ Hi,
+ This text was added now.
+ This text was present initially.
Stage this hunk [y,n,q,a,d,/,e,?]?

You can type y to add the hunk, or n to reject the hunk and it won’t be staged. Or you can type e to edit the hunk. And you will be presented with the hunk and a detailed description of how to edit the hunk.

# Manual hunk edit mode – see bottom for a quick guide
@@ -1,3 +1,5 @@ Hi,
+ This text was added now.
+ This text was present initially.
# ---
# To remove '-' lines, make them ' ' lines (context).
# To remove '+' lines, delete them.
# Lines starting with # will be removed.
#
# If the patch applies cleanly, the edited hunk will immediately be
# marked for staging. If it does not apply cleanly, you will be given
# an opportunity to edit again. If all lines of the hunk are removed,
# then the edit is aborted and the hunk is left unchanged.

If you are aware of some other awesome git tools let us know in the comments below.

Written by

Yuvaraja Balamurugan

Published at

May 05, 2014

Posted in

Research and Articles

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