| 1 | git-clean(1) |
| 2 | ============ |
| 3 | |
| 4 | NAME |
| 5 | ---- |
| 6 | git-clean - Remove untracked files from the working tree |
| 7 | |
| 8 | SYNOPSIS |
| 9 | -------- |
| 10 | [verse] |
| 11 | 'git clean' [-d] [-f] [-i] [-n] [-q] [-e <pattern>] [-x | -X] [--] [<pathspec>...] |
| 12 | |
| 13 | DESCRIPTION |
| 14 | ----------- |
| 15 | |
| 16 | Cleans the working tree by recursively removing files that are not |
| 17 | under version control, starting from the current directory. |
| 18 | |
| 19 | Normally, only files unknown to Git are removed, but if the `-x` |
| 20 | option is specified, ignored files are also removed. This can, for |
| 21 | example, be useful to remove all build products. |
| 22 | |
| 23 | If any optional `<pathspec>...` arguments are given, only those paths |
| 24 | that match the pathspec are affected. |
| 25 | |
| 26 | OPTIONS |
| 27 | ------- |
| 28 | -d:: |
| 29 | Normally, when no <pathspec> is specified, git clean will not |
| 30 | recurse into untracked directories to avoid removing too much. |
| 31 | Specify -d to have it recurse into such directories as well. |
| 32 | If a <pathspec> is specified, -d is irrelevant; all untracked |
| 33 | files matching the specified paths (with exceptions for nested |
| 34 | git directories mentioned under `--force`) will be removed. |
| 35 | |
| 36 | -f:: |
| 37 | --force:: |
| 38 | If the Git configuration variable clean.requireForce is not set |
| 39 | to false, 'git clean' will refuse to delete files or directories |
| 40 | unless given -f. Git will refuse to modify untracked |
| 41 | nested git repositories (directories with a .git subdirectory) |
| 42 | unless a second -f is given. |
| 43 | |
| 44 | -i:: |
| 45 | --interactive:: |
| 46 | Show what would be done and clean files interactively. See |
| 47 | ``Interactive mode'' for details. |
| 48 | Configuration variable `clean.requireForce` is ignored, as |
| 49 | this mode gives its own safety protection by going interactive. |
| 50 | |
| 51 | -n:: |
| 52 | --dry-run:: |
| 53 | Don't actually remove anything, just show what would be done. |
| 54 | Configuration variable `clean.requireForce` is ignored, as |
| 55 | nothing will be deleted anyway. |
| 56 | |
| 57 | -q:: |
| 58 | --quiet:: |
| 59 | Be quiet, only report errors, but not the files that are |
| 60 | successfully removed. |
| 61 | |
| 62 | -e <pattern>:: |
| 63 | --exclude=<pattern>:: |
| 64 | Use the given exclude pattern in addition to the standard ignore rules |
| 65 | (see linkgit:gitignore[5]). |
| 66 | |
| 67 | -x:: |
| 68 | Don't use the standard ignore rules (see linkgit:gitignore[5]), but |
| 69 | still use the ignore rules given with `-e` options from the command |
| 70 | line. This allows removing all untracked |
| 71 | files, including build products. This can be used (possibly in |
| 72 | conjunction with 'git restore' or 'git reset') to create a pristine |
| 73 | working directory to test a clean build. |
| 74 | |
| 75 | -X:: |
| 76 | Remove only files ignored by Git. This may be useful to rebuild |
| 77 | everything from scratch, but keep manually created files. |
| 78 | |
| 79 | Interactive mode |
| 80 | ---------------- |
| 81 | When the command enters the interactive mode, it shows the |
| 82 | files and directories to be cleaned, and goes into its |
| 83 | interactive command loop. |
| 84 | |
| 85 | The command loop shows the list of subcommands available, and |
| 86 | gives a prompt "What now> ". In general, when the prompt ends |
| 87 | with a single '>', you can pick only one of the choices given |
| 88 | and type return, like this: |
| 89 | |
| 90 | ------------ |
| 91 | *** Commands *** |
| 92 | 1: clean 2: filter by pattern 3: select by numbers |
| 93 | 4: ask each 5: quit 6: help |
| 94 | What now> 1 |
| 95 | ------------ |
| 96 | |
| 97 | You also could say `c` or `clean` above as long as the choice is unique. |
| 98 | |
| 99 | The main command loop has 6 subcommands. |
| 100 | |
| 101 | clean:: |
| 102 | |
| 103 | Start cleaning files and directories, and then quit. |
| 104 | |
| 105 | filter by pattern:: |
| 106 | |
| 107 | This shows the files and directories to be deleted and issues an |
| 108 | "Input ignore patterns>>" prompt. You can input space-separated |
| 109 | patterns to exclude files and directories from deletion. |
| 110 | E.g. "*.c *.h" will exclude files ending with ".c" and ".h" from |
| 111 | deletion. When you are satisfied with the filtered result, press |
| 112 | ENTER (empty) back to the main menu. |
| 113 | |
| 114 | select by numbers:: |
| 115 | |
| 116 | This shows the files and directories to be deleted and issues an |
| 117 | "Select items to delete>>" prompt. When the prompt ends with double |
| 118 | '>>' like this, you can make more than one selection, concatenated |
| 119 | with whitespace or comma. Also you can say ranges. E.g. "2-5 7,9" |
| 120 | to choose 2,3,4,5,7,9 from the list. If the second number in a |
| 121 | range is omitted, all remaining items are selected. E.g. "7-" to |
| 122 | choose 7,8,9 from the list. You can say '*' to choose everything. |
| 123 | Also when you are satisfied with the filtered result, press ENTER |
| 124 | (empty) back to the main menu. |
| 125 | |
| 126 | ask each:: |
| 127 | |
| 128 | This will start to clean, and you must confirm one by one in order |
| 129 | to delete items. Please note that this action is not as efficient |
| 130 | as the above two actions. |
| 131 | |
| 132 | quit:: |
| 133 | |
| 134 | This lets you quit without doing any cleaning. |
| 135 | |
| 136 | help:: |
| 137 | |
| 138 | Show brief usage of interactive git-clean. |
| 139 | |
| 140 | CONFIGURATION |
| 141 | ------------- |
| 142 | |
| 143 | include::includes/cmd-config-section-all.adoc[] |
| 144 | |
| 145 | include::config/clean.adoc[] |
| 146 | |
| 147 | SEE ALSO |
| 148 | -------- |
| 149 | linkgit:gitignore[5] |
| 150 | |
| 151 | GIT |
| 152 | --- |
| 153 | Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite |