[gooseyard]

I didn't know about git add -p when I started using magit and thought it was an amazing magit-specific feature and went around cluelessly telling everybody about it. Later when I was experimenting with a different editor I realized my folly, and have come to find that I prefer git add -p, since I often want to provide multiple paths or a glob etc when its time to add to the index.

Something I found that I like about the approach is that sometimes while working on a change, some unrelated code will catch my eye that I want to fix but not as part of my next commit. Being free to make the edit, knowing that I'll see it again later when staging changes, is nice because I would often otherwise forget to go back and revisit the thing I saw. The git add -p sessions then wind up being an opportunity to decide what changes go into each commit, etc. I do burn myself occasionally by having an unrelated edit that is in a hunk that can't be split- I suspect there are tweaks to diff I could make to help with that but have yet to overcome my apathy wrt research.

[palata]

> I do burn myself occasionally by having an unrelated edit that is in a hunk that can't be split- I suspect there are tweaks to diff I could make to help with that but have yet to overcome my apathy wrt research.

`git add -p` allows you to "edit [e]" the patch, meaning that you can really decide exactly what should be added. And that's a great opportunity to learn how to manipulate patches, which is an important skill IMO!

[gooseyard]

well im a dope, I never noticed the edit option. So if I edit the hunk and toggle the subset of changes I don't want, I'll get prompted to accept the diff of the diff? brb I need to go try this.

[gooseyard]

high five I won't need to worry about this again

[palata]

I'm glad it helps! \o/

[newusertoday]

in magit you can also select lines you want to commit. It's there in the article as well