git: Commit multiple files but add messages

Question

I have tons of files in my repo, and sometimes I work on 20 files and I want to commit all of them. But, I would like to add a message for each.

How can I add all of these files that have been updated and also add a message for each without having do run a command for each one manually? Is this possible to do a bulk run and have it prompt me to add a message for each one?

Answer 1

(A note: You shouldn’t think about individual files, nor should you commit a dozen unrelated changes at once. Think about your changes in terms of logical groups. You can commit as you go, or you can commit each file one at a time. But really try to make one conceptual change, commit it, and move on to something else.)

If you have lots of changed files, you can just add them all and use git commit, for the editor window contains a list of changed files which you can incorporate into your commit message. But if you want to be prompted for each one, you can loop through them and commit them individually, then squash those into a single commit.

• Write down where you are; we will squash on top of this later:

  $ git rev-parse HEAD
  57c1df83f140b2dedbdf8a44ee623654d37bd1c3 
  

• Loop through the modified files (note that untracked files are not considered here) and commit each one individually:

  $ for file in $(git ls-files)
  >   do git add $file
  >   git commit  # Write a commit message for the file.
  >               # It might be a good idea to use a format like "filename: changes"
  > done
  

• Squash everything:

  $ git rebase -i 57c1df83f140b2dedbdf8a44ee623654d37bd1c3
  

  Change every line but the first from pick to squash, then save and quit.