git: How do I recursively add all files in a directory subtree that match a glob pattern?

Question

I have several .screen files inside /xxx/documentation and its subdirectories that are already tracked by Git.

After modifying many of these screen files, I run git add documentation/\\*.screen—as indicated by the first example in git-add's documentation—to stage these files, but the command fails:

fatal: pathspec 'documentation/\*.screen' did not match any files

Is my command bad, or does git have a bug?

Answer 1

try

git add ./documentation/*.screen

Answer 2

You told the shell to look for *.screen (i.e. exactly this string - which doesn't exist - instead of what you want "all files that end with .screen). Omit the \\ so the shell can do the file name expansion for you.

Answer 3

It's a bug in the documentation. Quote the asterisk with

$ git add documentation/\*.screen

or

$ git add 'documentation/*.screen'

to get the behavior you want.

If instead you want to add files in the current directory only, use

$ git add *.screen

UPDATE: I submitted a patch that corrects the issue, now fixed as of version 1.6.6.2.