GIT-CHECKOUT-INDEX(1)                                    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&#8217;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-CHECKOUT-INDEX(1)
