unixorn / gunstage Goto Github PK

There are at least eight ways to unstage files in a Git repository. Remembering which versions of Git support which syntax, under which circumstances, reduced my productivity enough to publish this software in response.

This is a command-line shell plugin for undoing git add. Too many staged files? Can’t remember if it’s git reset HEAD or git restore --staged -- ? Just remember `gunstage`.

If you don’t want to unstage everything, more granular control is available and gunstage works exactly as you would expect the opposite of git add to work. You can unstage directories or only specific files: gunstage file1.txt file2.txt directory/.

There is no git unstage command. While git restore --staged often performs the task, it’s not reliable nor is it an obvious formula based on Git’s other commands.

Instead of keeping up with the latest incarnation of Git, whose git restore man page says the “command is experimental” and “the behavior may change”, in all capital letters no less, you can let this script do the remembering for you.

To unstage content in a Git repository – that is, to undo a git add – you must remember which commands are still in use out of the many I’m aware of having been recommended so far:

1. git restore --staged (source),

2. git reset HEAD (source),

3. git reset (source),

4. git restore --staged -- (source),

5. git reset HEAD -- (source),

6. git rm --cached (source),

7. git reset -- (source), and even

8. git rm --cached -- # ffs (source).

Next, you must be aware of repository context: if the repository is new and no commit has occurred yet, then git restore --staged won’t work, but gunstage will.

Its name is an abbreviation and portmanteau – or portmantabbreviation –, of git unstage arising by analog from Oh My Zsh’s other git aliases.

I developed this script in Zsh, for Zsh. But gunstage ports perfectly to the Korn shell as well as to Bash. You can literally just change env’s argument on line 1.

• Zsh 5.8 (or Ksh 93 (or Bash 5.0)), and

• Git 2.17.

I tested gunstage atop Zsh 5.8 using Git:

• 2.17 on Ubuntu 18.04,

• 2.20 on Debian 9.12,

• 2.28 on macOS 11.0 and Alpine 3.11 and 3.12, and

• 2.29 on macOS 11.0 and Alpine 3.11 and 3.12.

From macOS, I use iTerm2; from iOS, I use iSH.