Untracked/Modified/Staged

Create another file called config.pl and check the status.

$ git status

# On branch master
# Changes not staged for commit:
#   (use "git add <file>..." to update what will be committed)
#   (use "git checkout -- <file>..." to discard changes in working directory)
#
#       modified:   README.txt
#
# Untracked files:
#   (use "git add <file>..." to include in what will be committed)
#
#       config.pl
#       setup.pl
no changes added to commit (use "git add" and/or "git commit -a")

We now have several changes in the working directory (one file changes and two were added). Some of these changes might be related to each other, some might be unrelated.

It would have been cleaner if we worked on exactly one task at a time, but life happens. While we are working something we might see a typo and we can’t stop ourselves and fix it.

Another case might be that while we are working on something we realize we already did that in some other place. Instead of copy-paste we would like to convert the other part to be a stand alone function and then reuse that function. (Refactoring)

So we have multiple, unrelated changes in the workdir. It would be clearer for the reader if we committed these changes separately.

We can do that easily by staging only some of the changes.

Stage one of the files:

$ git add config.pl

# On branch master
# Changes to be committed:
#   (use "git reset HEAD <file>..." to unstage)
#
#       new file:   config.pl
#
# Changes not staged for commit:
#   (use "git add <file>..." to update what will be committed)
#   (use "git checkout -- <file>..." to discard changes in working directory)
#
#       modified:   README.txt
#
# Untracked files:
#   (use "git add <file>..." to include in what will be committed)
#
#       setup.pl