Git commit -a "untracked files"?

Question

When I do a git commit -a, I am seeing the following:

  # Please enter the commit message for your changes. Lines starting   # with '#' will be ignored, and an empty message aborts the commit.   # On branch better_tag_show   # Changes to be committed:   #   (use "git reset HEAD <file>..." to unstage)   #   # modified:   ../assets/stylesheets/application.css   # modified:   ../views/pages/home.html.erb   # modified:   ../views/tags/show.html.erb   # modified:   ../../db/seeds.rb   #   # Untracked files:   #   (use "git add <file>..." to include in what will be committed)   #   # ../assets/stylesheets/   # ../views/pages/ 

What does those untracked files mean? All the changes have been indeed tracked. I don't understand why git is warning me about untracked files here.

EDIT:

Ok I see a lot of confused replies. This is what happens after I git commit -a this.

# On branch master nothing to commit (working directory clean) 

As you can see, there is NOTHING other than those four files that had changes applied.

My question should be rephrased as follows: Why is git warning me about untracked files when all of the changes in this commit has been tracked?

In other words, is the untracked warning in the git commit message unnecessary?

Answer 1

For others having the same problem, try running

git add . which will add all files of the current directory to track (including untracked) and then use

git commit -a to commit all tracked files.

As suggested by @Pacerier, one liner that does the same thing is

git add -A