git add . not working-> still “nothing to commit” with new files

Question

I am struggling with Git, I can't seem to add my files. I ran ls to show that the files are in the current directory, then run git add . then git status which showed "nothing to commit".

JJ-Computer:first_app JJ$ git init

Reinitialized existing Git repository in /Users/JJ/rails_projects/first_app/.git/

JJ-Computer:first_app JJ$ ls

Diary.txt README.rdoc config.ru log   tmp

Gemfile   Rakefile  db    public    vendor

Gemfile.lock  app   doc   script

README    config    lib   test

JJ-Computer:first_app JJ$ git add .

JJ-Computer:first_app Jenn$ git status

# On branch master

nothing to commit (working directory clean)

JJ-Computer:first_app JJ$ 

 

Answer 1

Your commands look correct (I've done them many times that way).

First, try

git add --all

and then try git status. I don't think that will solve it, but worth trying next.

Next try looking at your .gitignore file, if you have one (in the top-level where you did git init).

cat .gitignore

Remove any listings there that are causing your files to be ignored. For example, is there an entry with just *?

Next try:

git add --force

and then try git status.

If none of those work, I notice that your output from git init says "reinitialized" rather than "initialized", so something may have gotten messed up. If you've just initialized it and if it's Okay for you losing history, start over by removing the .git dir:

rm -rf .git

And then re-execute your same commands above. If that doesn't work, some more information about your setup will be required. For example, you might have a global .gitignore file: ~/.gitignore_global that need to edited (or removed if you don't want it).