What is the difference between git rm –cached and git reset ?

What is the difference between git rm –cached and git reset ?

Asked 9 years, 6 months ago Modified 1 year, 10 months ago Viewed 113k times 41

According to the git rm documentation,

–cached Use this option to unstage and remove paths only from the index.
Working tree files, whether modified or not, will be left alone. But according to this resource unstaging a file is done with

git reset HEAD What is the difference? Is there one?

git Share Improve this question Follow asked Jun 23, 2016 at 20:27 sakurashinken’s user avatar sakurashinken 4,11088 gold badges4141 silver badges7575 bronze badges git reset can be used to go back on the tree, for instance if you want to go two commits back you can do git reset HEAD~2. – Jezor CommentedJun 23, 2016 at 20:30 6 If there is no in HEAD, then both command equivalent. If there is in HEAD, then git reset HEAD will unstage file, while git rm --cached will stage file for removal. – user4003407 CommentedJun 23, 2016 at 20:45 Add a comment 3 Answers Sorted by:

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With git rm –cached you stage a file for removal, but you don’t remove it from the working dir. The file will then be shown as untracked.

Take a test drive

git init test_repo cd test_repo

touch test git add test git commit -m ‘Added file test’

git rm –cached test

git status Changes to be committed: (use “git reset HEAD ..." to unstage)

    deleted:    test      <---- staged for removal

Untracked files: (use “git add ..." to include in what will be committed)

    test              <-- still in the working dir With git reset <file> you can unstage a file. In the example above you might want to use git reset test to unstage the removal.

git reset test git status On branch master nothing to commit, working directory clean Share Improve this answer Follow edited Mar 13, 2024 at 16:14 Monica Granbois’s user avatar Monica Granbois 8,25211 gold badge2020 silver badges1818 bronze badges answered Jun 23, 2016 at 21:12 René Link’s user avatar René Link 52k1515 gold badges119119 silver badges152152 bronze badges Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

Comments

23

The command with flag git rm –cached removes the file from the index but leaves it in the working directory. This indicates to git that you don’t want to track the file any more.

On the other hand, the command git reset HEAD leaves the file as a tracked file in the index, but the modifications cached in the index are lost. This has the effect as if the file in cache had been over written by the file in HEAD (while the working tree file is untouched).

Share Improve this answer Follow edited Oct 5, 2021 at 14:00 Kris Stern’s user avatar Kris Stern 1,39022 gold badges1818 silver badges2727 bronze badges answered Jun 23, 2016 at 20:59 Gregg’s user avatar Gregg 2,68211 gold badge1414 silver badges2222 bronze badges Comments

6

clear cache full by this:

git rm -r –cached . Share Improve this answer Follow edited Jan 23, 2024 at 7:28 answered Dec 23, 2022 at 7:50 hgiahuyy’s user avatar hgiahuyy 31833 silver badges6