GIT: error: pathspec 'xxx did not match any file(s) known to git

Question

I have some trouble with a git repository of mine and I cant find the error :(

Thing is, I had this repository already in use for a PHP project. everything was fine. Then, I "added" composer to it. I.e., I copied the composer file to the repositorie's root, created a composer.json, and used "composer install". Hence, composer.lock and vendor/ were created for me.

Since I didnt want those to be included in the repo, I added the following to the .gitignore

composer
composer.lock
vendor/

Now, whenever I use "git add" oder "git commit" from the root, I will get the following errors:

$ git commit * -m "fixed issue #123"
error: pathspec 'composer' did not match any file(s) known to git.
error: pathspec 'composer.lock' did not match any file(s) known to git.
error: pathspec 'vendor' did not match any file(s) known to git.

Obviously, the commit (or add) does not work so I have to manually specify files to add or commit. Bummer.

I cannot find the problem :( Anyone knows how to fix this?

BTW I am using git version 2.4.9 (Apple Git-60)

Answer 1

I often have this problem if something has changed, added files to gitignore or something else. Maybe you have to rebuild the index.

Updated: added recursive and file param to git rm

In my case this worked:

remove cached files (only the paths are removed from the index, not the real files!!!)

git rm -r --cached .

add all files to the index

git add .

commit

git commit -m "hopefully fixed pathspec error"

UPDATE: If this won't work, try the following:

• Get a new checkout from your repo
• remove composer, composer.lock, vendor/ from your .gitignore
• run the above suggestion again
• move the folders composer, composer.lock, vendor/ outside your repo
• add and commit, maybe add with -A to add that the files are deleted
• add composer, composer.lock, vendor/ to your .gitignore and commit
• move back the folders composer, composer.lock, vendor/ to your repo

Now it should be gone from the repo and due to your .gitignore, never will be commited again. Hopefully the pathspec error is gone :)