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![Farnoosh Johnson](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/bae8a5df00ab4f4d6512e333266279b3?s=96&d=https%3A%2F%2Fecs-static.teamtreehouse.com%2Fassets%2Fcontent%2Fdefault_avatar-445fbbabfc8dc9188fb5967fe43322ee0c3e0dd1e10f378bf8343784af5a13eb.webp&r=pg)
Farnoosh Johnson
7,887 Pointswhen we make changes in a file, what is a different between staging and just commit the changes with -a -m "changes"
what is a different between: staging: $ git add file1 $ git commit -m "I made some changes"
and
$git commit -a -m "I made some changes"
1 Answer
![Kevin Korte](https://uploads.teamtreehouse.com/production/profile-photos/86647/micro_me.jpg)
Kevin Korte
28,148 PointsWhen a file is first created, it is "untracked" by git. Git is aware of it, but it's never been checked in before.
So git add file1 $ git commit -m "I made some changes", first adds the file as the new file as tracked, and than commits it.
$git commit -a -m "I made some changes" is only going to grab modified files for the commit. Meaning files that have already been added to git before, and thus have a history in the git repo.
You can check this with git status. It will tell you which files are modified, and which are untracked. A shorthand to track all currently untracked files is git add -A (with a capital A).
So if you want to do a sweeping wide commit to cover everything it's git add -A, git commit -m "I made changes"