git-checkout-index

GIT-CHECKOUT-INDEX(1)             Git Manual             GIT-CHECKOUT-INDEX(1)

NAME
       git-checkout-index - Copy files from the index to the working tree

SYNOPSIS
       git checkout-index [-u] [-q] [-a] [-f] [-n] [--prefix=<string>]
                          [--stage=<number>|all]
                          [--temp]
                          [-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>|all
           Instead of checking out unmerged entries, copy out the files from
           named stage. <number> must be between 1 and 3. Note: --stage=all
           automatically implies --temp.

       --temp
           Instead of copying the files to the working directory write the
           content to temporary files. The temporary name associations will be
           written to stdout.

       --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.

USING --TEMP OR --STAGE=ALL
       When --temp is used (or implied by --stage=all) git checkout-index will
       create a temporary file for each index entry being checked out. The
       index will not be updated with stat information. These options can be
       useful if the caller needs all stages of all unmerged entries so that
       the unmerged files can be processed by an external merge tool.

       A listing will be written to stdout providing the association of
       temporary file names to tracked path names. The listing format has two
       variations:

        1. tempname TAB path RS

           The first format is what gets used when --stage is omitted or is
           not --stage=all. The field tempname is the temporary file name
           holding the file content and path is the tracked path name in the
           index. Only the requested entries are output.

        2. stage1temp SP stage2temp SP stage3tmp TAB path RS

           The second format is what gets used when --stage=all. The three
           stage temporary fields (stage1temp, stage2temp, stage3temp) list
           the name of the temporary file if there is a stage entry in the
           index or .  if there is no stage entry. Paths which only have a
           stage 0 entry will always be omitted from the output.

       In both formats RS (the record separator) is newline by default but
       will be the null byte if -z was passed on the command line. The
       temporary file names are always safe strings; they will never contain
       directory separators or whitespace characters. The path field is always
       relative to the current directory and the temporary file names are
       always relative to the top level directory.

       If the object being copied out to a temporary file is a symbolic link
       the content of the link will be written to a normal file. It is up to
       the end-user or the Porcelain to make use of this information.

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.

GIT
       Part of the git(1) suite

Git 2.25.1                        04/26/2023             GIT-CHECKOUT-INDEX(1)