Vim - Add a file to the staging area

This is a mapping that adds the current file to the git staging area.

nnoremap <leader>ga :silent !git add %<CR>

This won't work if the file is not located within your current working directory.

How can you determine the current working directory (cwd)?

:pwd

To change to the directory of the current file:

:cd %:h

Change to the parent directory.

:cd ../

Change to the home directory.

:cd ~

Or simply.

:cd

But let's get back to the mapping.

nnoremap <leader>ga :silent !git add %<CR>

How does it work?

The shell command - !{cmd}

The shell command lets you execute a {cmd} with the shell.

The shell is defined by the 'shell' option. The default is $SHELL or "sh" or on Win32 it's "cmd.exe".

Example: List directory contents

:!ls

If {cmd} contains "%" it is expanded to the current file name.

Example: Add current file contents to git index

:!git add %

The last is part to understand is :silent.

The silent command - :silent {cmd}

The silent command lets you execute a {cmd} silently.

Example: Show the working tree git status

:!git status

Example: Show the working tree git status, silently

:silent !git status

This is useful for commands that have output we don't care about.

Let's go back to the mapping again.

nnoremap <leader>ga :silent !git add %<CR>

We don't care about the output of this command.

I hope this has been helpful. Take it easy, my friends.